Robert Menzies Movies

A young girl searching for her estranged father is abducted and imprisoned by a demented family of killers. Summer (Ashley Greene) was traveling across the country when handsome young handyman Tom Hoxey (Peter Mooney) helped her out of a tight jam. Charmed into spending the night at his place before she starts her journey again the following morning, Summer discovers the dangers of accepting rides from strangers when she's chained in the basement of Tom's house and threatened with death unless she agrees to become the newest member of the murderous clan. Stephen McHattie and Barbara Niven co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A man with no memory is unwittingly thrown into danger in this thriller with a comic edge from Australia. As Adrian (Clayton Watson), a young man who suffers from severe amnesia and can't retain a memory for longer than 30 minutes, is being held against his will by gangsters, he struggles to figure out what has happened to him, using his collection of scribbled notes and instant photos to recall recent events. Eventually, Adrian remembers Brandon (Nathan Phillips), who works at a home for the challenged where Adrian spends his days. Brandon is a champion surfer who is sentenced to work at the home as community service after becoming involved in a vicious fight. Brandon has convinced his supervisor Maxine (Marg Downey) to let him take Adrian and palsied Trevor (Steady Eddie) to the beach for a day in the sun; Brandon, however, has an ulterior motive, as a surf competition is being held at the seashore that day. After picking up hitchhiker Jo (Chloe Maxwell), Brandon and his charges arrive at the beach, where a run-in with Gene (Damien Garvey), the leader of a local gang, takes matters in an unfortunate direction. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Australian filmmaker Stavros Kazantzidis directs the dark comedy Horseplay. Con man Max Mackendrick (Marcus Graham) wants a bit of horseracing action, so he marries the snobby Alicia Coxhead (Tushka Bergen), the daughter of famous horceracer Barry Coxhead (Bill Hunter). However, Max gets eternally barred from the sport after he gets caught swapping horses. Undaunted, Max and his sex-addict sidekick Henry (Jason Donovan) come up with a plan to make a million dollars at the Melbourne Cup. He needs the money to get back at his nemesis Barry and to reunite with his needy ex-girlfriend Jade (Natalie Mendoza). He hires two crooks (Jacek Koman and Robert Menzies) for an elaborate kidnapping scheme that inevitably and quickly goes awry. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Coma meets Heathers in this Australian black comedy about crime, revenge, and kidney thieves. Brad (Matt Day) and Gregor (Jason Barry) are eager med students struggling to make ends meet. Thanks to government cutbacks, they are forced to share a cockroach-infested one-bedroom apartment, which they rent from their odious landlord (Reg Evans), and they're even forced to share the same bed (an inflatable sex doll in a nurse's uniform divides the mattress and reasserts their nervous heterosexuality). Their living situation is made even worse by their obnoxious neighbors; one guy who lives upstairs (Robert Carlton) engages in loud parties and noisy lovemaking at all hours of the night while another guy's car alarm constantly goes off. Unable to sleep or eat, much less study, the two are on the brink of giving up their studies. To make matters even worse, they are up to their stethoscopes in debt to gangster/western-enthusiast George Roy Rogers (Chris Haywood). Though his penchant for cheesy western memorabilia and silly hats seems a bit daft, he is deadly serious about collecting, and his two muscle-bound thugs Dale and Trigger are hell-bent on enforcing the debt. Brad and Gregor's luck changes when they learn of a noted surgeon, Marcus Browning (Rod Mullinar), who is willing to pay top dollar for organs, just before a sharply-dressed yuppie takes a flying leap and splatter-lands at their feet. Thinking quickly, Brad yanks out a kidney, crams it in an ice cream carton, and carries it over to Browning. Counting their cash, they realize that they have happened upon a neat little way of getting out of the red. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

This caustic Australian comedy is meant to burn those commercial interests who sponsor artists for tax breaks. It also a sexually unresponsive wife's revenge against her cheating husband. Heiress Georgina Oliphant, the daughter of pharmaceutical magnate George Oliphant is on a mission to find a sculptor suitable of her father's sponsorship. Normally, George doesn't give a hoot about art, but tax time approaches and he needs a big deduction. Since large bronze statues are 100% deductible, that's what he wants. Georgina comes through with the lesbian sculptor Lily Carmichael who suggests a detailed male nude, sans fig leaf. For her model, lily chooses unemployed hunk Karl-Heinz Applebaum who at first doesn't realize he is to model totally nude. Fortunately, coquettish Georgina is around to convince him to shed those clothes. He soon begins looking forward to the sessions much to the dismay of his frowsy, sexually frosty wife Cecilia, a devout member of the "Center for Synchronic Awareness," an esoteric religious cult which is headed by the oily, avaricious Baba Charles whose picture Cecilia has placed throughout her home (Aussie film buffs may recognize the photo as that of director Rolf de Heer, a rival of this film's director Paul Cox). Soon enough, her husband and Georgina become lovers causing Cecilia to hatch an elaborate plot for revenge, a plot in which the financially beleaguered George Oliphant unwittingly assists by having her pose with her husband for an even larger, more tax deductible sculpture. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Michael is the extremely impoverished nephew of George, a wealthy mining magnate. Not only is he poor now, but he grew up poor. Michael has reason to believe that his uncle cheated him of his inheritance from his father's share in the family mining operation. Michael is concerned about taking care of a mentally handicapped brother and a half-brother who is part aboriginal. George, when confronted, indicates that whatever the facts of the case are, he isn't letting go of a penny. Michael decides to kidnap George's granddaughter for ransom. The snatch takes place while the girl's aunt, a Polish nun, is visiting her mother (the nun's sister), who is not well. She gets caught up in the abduction as well, and a relationship develops between the angry young man and the otherworldly religious woman. She only knows that he seems like a ruffian, and she expects to be raped. He just wants her to be respectful of him. The situation brings on a degree of personal intimacy neither of them has anticipated. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Bernard (Chris Haywood) is clearly someone with an obsessive personality, as witnessed by his lifelong love affair with old-time clocks. He even earns his livelihood by finding, selling, and repairing them. However, obsessions aside, he seems a decent sort, happly involved in a relationship with Terese (Gosia Dobrowolska), the wife of a clueless Salvation Army major. When Bernard discovers a lock of golden hair in a very old cabinet, a new obsession develops: he literally falls in love with it. He talks to it, he fondles it, he even has sex (of a sort) with it. As he does, he grows every more detached from real life. However, his living girlfriend is not going to take this sort of thing lying down, and she energetically works to win him back. This tale is based on a 19th century story, Le Chevelure, by French author Guy de Maupassant. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Isabelle Huppert plays a French woman who travels to Australia after leaving her husband. Injured in an accident, Huppert is in danger of losing her sight. Her friends try to get her to "bond" with blind doctor Robert Menzies, who possesses a greenhouse full of cactus. In the big "Author's Statement" scene, Menzies likens his cactus to people who need special care, even though they seem to bloom only when neglected. The arrival of Isabelle's husband Jean-Pierre Mignon only serves to solidify the relationship between "human cacti" Huppert and Menzies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide