“I cannot accept your premise, Socrates. Affectability… progress… are vanities spawned by fear. A vanity spawned by fear. The aim of what you call civilisation is a man in a smokin’ jacket, whiskey and soda, pressing a bottom… button, to destroy a planet a billion miles away, kill a billion people he’s never seen.”

There is something primeval about this film – a clash between modernity and primitiveness that recalls revisionist American Western movies, but adds an edge of Australian mythology. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, it’s a movie that gives the audience a sense of a descent into madness and violence, not unlike Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), possibly where the idea of this as a horror comes from.

A middle class teacher works in a rural school in the sun-scorched outback of Australia. When the term ends he jumps on a train to get back to the city and civilisation, but instead becomes stranded in an isolated mining town. There, he encounters a series of eccentric locals and finds his masculinity tested. Plied with drink, all his attempts to carry on his journey fail – scuppered by hangovers and more drinking. The film is peppered with violence, including a stand-out visceral hunting scene, but this is complemented by a brutally harsh cinematography. There are hints of Nicolas Roeg here, not just Walkabout (1971) but also Performance (1970) with a similar blurring of reality and nightmare. the performances anchor the film, the stand out being Donald Pleasence as the local doctor – an alcoholic homosexual who becomes the teacher’s mentor and antagonist.

It’s a difficult film to like – but worth it. It’s a nightmarish and garish depiction of rural Australia that taps into themes of masculinity, escapism and violence that doesn’t offer any compromise.  Watch in a double bill either with  The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) or Roeg’s Walkabout (1971)