Pure S**t is, in short, pretty crap. However it does has its moments of hilarity, the highlight of the film being the finale at the rehab clinic. The humour of the rest of the film is quite weak, with the exception of just about the worst car-chase scene I have ever seen, which is so crap that it is surprisingly enjoyable. The bulk of Pure S**t really serves only to set the scene for the last act which, excepting the stroke of genius in the naming of the film (a rival perhaps to the entirely anonymously produced "The Best Film in the World"), is the only real reason you would watch this film. The four junkies are comprised of a dopey girl with an annoying voice whose name I cannot remember, John and his girlfriend, and Lou. The director obviously decided that Lou would be the 'complete dickhead', which sets up the film quite well. After the raid on the pharmacy John gets kidnapped by the rehab clinic and the others go to try and rescue him, but acting as a prelude to this finishing tour de force is a scene in which they go to visit one of Lou's friends who is out of mind on I presume coke or speed. He is the 'stupid bloke that runs around naked' and his girlfriend plays the 'cleaning freak' and it is only at this point that the bad acting (which I doubt is intentional) plays out its advantage and the whole point of Lou becomes apparent - he is of course the twat that plays out all the stupidity; It is not really posible to convey the screwball humour of it in writing but it revolves from this point around Dr Woolf who is the hilarious gimp in charge of the rehab programme. It is not black humour, as is suggested by other reviews - dark-ish stuff, but the morons who dubbed it the "most evil film in the world" are essentially of the same ilk that would praise the film as a masterpiece. This it is not - it would be worth seeing if it came out on video, but this seems like a gradually dying possibility.
5 Reviews
Seedy Seventies Melbourne
spdegabrielle22 May 1999
Chasing their next hit
felicity-1128 September 2004
Excellent account of a group of people drawn together in the never ending chase for their next hit. It draws together characters who have just given up, just starting on a path to destruction, people who have already begun a path to crime. Nobody ever considers pulling out they just keep going. The journey includes overdoses, burglary, speed freaks and the blockaid methadone program that became popular in the 70s. The characters seem real and the low quality of the acting only makes them more real. Guys who have to have their hits before the girls, no sex relationships and other reality bites add to the quality of the script. An Excellent film that shows Australians can produce worthwhile films in the drug/road movie genre.
This s..t is s ..t
PeterMitchell-506-56436411 December 2012
I was always wondering if I'd ever see this movie, that was actually a cult movie from '75. It's title so befits this movie. Apart from Buffy Down Under which was intolerable viewing, this is the worst Aussie film I've ever seen. It's one of the most disappointing movies I've ever seen too, it's cover like the one for Buffy Down Under is the best thing about it. Dig the syringe that replaces the I in S..t. It's about drug culture in the 70's. It's flat, boring, and repellent. I rather watch Palm Beach, honestly, a much better movie on this subject. I'll never watch this one again, and would swear it on an oath. If it popped up on t.v. I couldn't change the channel fast enough. Do yourself a favor, take note of what I've written. You may just find yourself revisiting the DVD shop and asking for a refund. And this advice, goes a thousand times over for Buffy. Abominable.
Frenetic, harrowing time-capsule piece of Australian drive-in product that transcends its target.
Antiquercus17 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This film has for various reasons been out of view since the 1970s. Beyond Productions has produced a cleaned up print and a DVD release, and it is currently touring the country in a revival, accompanied by director Bert Deling and actor Garry Waddell.
Strangely, I don't recall mention of this film in the recent survey of Australian schlock, "Not Quite Hollywood". If this is an omission, and not my misremembering, it's an odd one, given that this film is exactly the sort of boobs, balls, rock'n'roll, freaky, FJ-Holden-driving drive-in movie that NQH surveyed. The film also was even more notorious for a brief time than the reviled cult film "Turkey Shoot".
The film was censored ("refused certificate" was the terminology I believe) for its explicit and frequent portrayals of drug use, many simulated, but two scenes are authentic records of heroin injection. The ban was lifted after the director "shone a light on the chief censors office". After early screenings however, the Melbourne Herald ran a highly critical film review on page 3 (rather than towards the back of the paper as usual), calling it "The most evil film". The film's run ended shortly after, and the film vanished from view, being seen only by film students borrowing overplayed video copies from university film libraries. It never made it to TV obviously; if you cut the drug related material, you'd be left with a minute or two of a car duel between an old Valiant and an FJ Holden. (Which is incidentally another example of Quentin Tarantino's observation about the use of cars in Australian film. I felt there was some influence from The Cars that Ate Paris showing.)
The film is very energetic and harrowing, following the pursuit by a group of heroin addicts as they seek a score. It's more harrowing than either Romper Stomper or Bad Boy Bubby. The editing, the rapidly delivered dialogue, 1970s Australian style, the bluesy 70s pub rock proto-Skyhooks score and the roaring soundtrack keep the film moving forward with momentum. It feels out of control. The pace drops away in the last act set in a methadone clinic, where the patients have been turned into zombies by the deadening effects of methadone. This is probably deliberate. Director Deling, in the Q&A after the screening I attended, said that they wanted to make the point that methadone was as damaging a drug in the doses they used in those days as heroin was.
The drug use scenes are full on, to the point of non-using actors injecting distilled water into their arms. The using actors didn't muck about, they shot up with real heroin. There is a grueling scene in which Lou (Garry Waddell) shows the preparation of an injection, and then has a couple of goes inserting the needle, with the fluid in the syringe becoming more tainted with his blood. The scene has apparently made some audience members queasy, so be warned.
Deling mentioned in the Q&A that he attempted to convey the drug rush by mixing a crescendo of sound over the top. (airplane engines) It's very effective, but the actors play their part too with amazing subtlety. I found I was watching closely to see their physiological responses, primed by the expectation that I was to see actual drug use. I later learned that one of the scenes that I was sure showed a user experiencing the heroin rush was in fact simulated, surely a credit to her acting.
The film has been flagged as one of 50 significant Australian films to be preserved digitally by the NAFSA. No doubt its censorship and notoriety are a part of the reason, but it would deserve preservation for its no-taboo catalogue of the issues of drug use in urban Australia in the 1970s, pre-HIV/AIDS.
The director and lead actor were at pains to point out that the film, contrary to what its critics said, was in no way pro-drug, and should be seen as anti-drug, although I wonder if they protested a little too much. For the most part, it is not preachy, except where preachiness is being mocked (the methadone expert). There's an interesting sequence with a character who is fed up with the unending cycle of withdrawing from drugs, only to be drawn back in by junkie mates. His voice is the clearest one in opposition to drug use, but it comes from acquired disgust rather than remote theoretical moralising.
The rest of the film is anti-drug in that the picture it paints of drug use is mostly sordid and sometimes horrific. The humiliations and hazards the characters go are severe, which underscores the power of their addictions. It's a comedy at times, but sometimes I couldn't be sure.
I left the theatre certain that I had never seen a film like it at all. If you are a student of Australian Cinema, this is definitely a film that you must see.
Strangely, I don't recall mention of this film in the recent survey of Australian schlock, "Not Quite Hollywood". If this is an omission, and not my misremembering, it's an odd one, given that this film is exactly the sort of boobs, balls, rock'n'roll, freaky, FJ-Holden-driving drive-in movie that NQH surveyed. The film also was even more notorious for a brief time than the reviled cult film "Turkey Shoot".
The film was censored ("refused certificate" was the terminology I believe) for its explicit and frequent portrayals of drug use, many simulated, but two scenes are authentic records of heroin injection. The ban was lifted after the director "shone a light on the chief censors office". After early screenings however, the Melbourne Herald ran a highly critical film review on page 3 (rather than towards the back of the paper as usual), calling it "The most evil film". The film's run ended shortly after, and the film vanished from view, being seen only by film students borrowing overplayed video copies from university film libraries. It never made it to TV obviously; if you cut the drug related material, you'd be left with a minute or two of a car duel between an old Valiant and an FJ Holden. (Which is incidentally another example of Quentin Tarantino's observation about the use of cars in Australian film. I felt there was some influence from The Cars that Ate Paris showing.)
The film is very energetic and harrowing, following the pursuit by a group of heroin addicts as they seek a score. It's more harrowing than either Romper Stomper or Bad Boy Bubby. The editing, the rapidly delivered dialogue, 1970s Australian style, the bluesy 70s pub rock proto-Skyhooks score and the roaring soundtrack keep the film moving forward with momentum. It feels out of control. The pace drops away in the last act set in a methadone clinic, where the patients have been turned into zombies by the deadening effects of methadone. This is probably deliberate. Director Deling, in the Q&A after the screening I attended, said that they wanted to make the point that methadone was as damaging a drug in the doses they used in those days as heroin was.
The drug use scenes are full on, to the point of non-using actors injecting distilled water into their arms. The using actors didn't muck about, they shot up with real heroin. There is a grueling scene in which Lou (Garry Waddell) shows the preparation of an injection, and then has a couple of goes inserting the needle, with the fluid in the syringe becoming more tainted with his blood. The scene has apparently made some audience members queasy, so be warned.
Deling mentioned in the Q&A that he attempted to convey the drug rush by mixing a crescendo of sound over the top. (airplane engines) It's very effective, but the actors play their part too with amazing subtlety. I found I was watching closely to see their physiological responses, primed by the expectation that I was to see actual drug use. I later learned that one of the scenes that I was sure showed a user experiencing the heroin rush was in fact simulated, surely a credit to her acting.
The film has been flagged as one of 50 significant Australian films to be preserved digitally by the NAFSA. No doubt its censorship and notoriety are a part of the reason, but it would deserve preservation for its no-taboo catalogue of the issues of drug use in urban Australia in the 1970s, pre-HIV/AIDS.
The director and lead actor were at pains to point out that the film, contrary to what its critics said, was in no way pro-drug, and should be seen as anti-drug, although I wonder if they protested a little too much. For the most part, it is not preachy, except where preachiness is being mocked (the methadone expert). There's an interesting sequence with a character who is fed up with the unending cycle of withdrawing from drugs, only to be drawn back in by junkie mates. His voice is the clearest one in opposition to drug use, but it comes from acquired disgust rather than remote theoretical moralising.
The rest of the film is anti-drug in that the picture it paints of drug use is mostly sordid and sometimes horrific. The humiliations and hazards the characters go are severe, which underscores the power of their addictions. It's a comedy at times, but sometimes I couldn't be sure.
I left the theatre certain that I had never seen a film like it at all. If you are a student of Australian Cinema, this is definitely a film that you must see.
See also
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