Blu-Ray Review: Long Weekend

By Jeffery X Martin

If we Americans have learned anything over the last 20 years, it’s that Australia is hell on earth. Spiders bigger than your face, jellyfish that can kill you from ten miles away, sharks, Yahoo Serious. . . it’s the kind of place we should really nuke from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

At its dark little heart, the 1978 Australian film Long Weekend is about hell, and the different ways that concept can manifest itself into reality.

Our protagonists, who are also the main antagonists, are Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets). For them, hell is other people, namely each other. Their marriage is a minefield of accusations and long festering resentments. When Peter buys a new rifle with a scope, the first thing he aims at is his wife’s head. Happy people don’t do that.

A camping trip to a deserted beach seems like the perfect way to make a new proposition, but getting away from the old routine doesn’t change the fact that Peter and Marcia are soul-dead. Their lack of concern and respect for each other is reflected in the way they treat the world around them. Peter accidentally causes a bush fire by tossing a cigarette from the car window. He runs over a kangaroo and doesn’t attempt to help it or put it out of its misery. Marcia is no better, with her yammering and sniping, chopping away at Peter’s humanity one brutish word at a time.

It’s a self-conducting symphony of destruction as Peter and Marcia finally become so annoying that Nature itself decides it’s had enough and makes moves to get rid of them. Thinking of Long Weekend as just another “animals go crazy” movie, which is how it was marketed, really sells this movie short. As the couple implodes and nature rebels, jump scares are kept at a minimum. It’s the strength of the leading performances that make this movie work, as it really is a glimpse into the cold hell of the human heart.

This is the first time Long Weekend has been seen in the original widescreen anamorphic since its theatrical release. It’s gorgeous, and the restoration is stunning. The water, which appears muted in other iterations of the film, is an alluring blue, almost shocking when one first sees it. The original mono soundtrack has been expanded into a 5.1 DTS track, which fills the viewing area with strange sounds coming from the rear speakers, totally engulfing the viewer in the Outback outdoors experience.

Long Weekend is not a well-known film, but its importance and reputation have grown throughout the years. It is one of the best films to come from the Golden Age of Australian Cinema. The story is timeless, unfortunately, with its focus on human unkindness and Nature’s ability to sweep things clean. Other movies have covered similar territory, but there’s a quiet unease in Long Weekend that elevates it above other films in the same sub-genre. It’s a long hard look at things falling apart, and personal hell has never looked better.

Long Weekend was released on April 14 from Synapse Films. The Blu-ray also includes an audio commentary track from producer Richard Brennan and cinematographer Vincent Monton, a stills gallery featuring an audio interview with actor John Hargreaves, and the film’s original theatrical trailer.