Long Weekend (1978 film)
| Long Weekend | |
|---|---|
Theatrical film poster
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| Directed by | Colin Eggleston |
| Produced by | Colin Eggleston Richard Brennan |
| Written by | Everett De Roche |
| Starring |
John Hargreaves Briony Behets |
| Music by | Michael Carlos |
| Cinematography | Vincent Monton |
| Edited by | Brian Kavanagh |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Roadshow Films |
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Release date
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29 March 1979 |
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Running time
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92 minutes |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Budget | AU$425,000 or $270,000 |
Long Weekend is an Australian horror film shot in 1977 and first shown in 1978. The film was directed by Colin Eggleston and stars John Hargreaves and Briony Behets.
The story concerns a couple, Peter (Hargreaves) and Marcia (Behets), who, along with their dog, go for a weekend camping trip. The pair show incredible disrespect for nature, especially Peter, such as polluting, killing a dugong, throwing lit cigarette butts in dry bush, and spraying insecticide, among other transgressions. As tensions between the couple escalate, nature is not pleased with their environmental wrongdoing and starts to strike back, first by an eagle and possum attacking Peter, and then through more insidious means...
The script was the first feature script written by Everett De Roche, an experienced Australian TV writer. He was inspired by a trip he took on an Easter weekend to an isolated beach in New South Wales:
I started LW as a way to avoid the TV-cop-show doldrums while still convincing myself I was “working”. LW was a unique project because I began with no outline, no notes or research, very little idea as to where the story was going, and absolutely zero knowledge of screenplays. I simply started at page 1, scene 1, and made it up as I went. I had only a vague plan to write a kind of environmental horror story. My premise was that Mother Earth has her own auto-immune system, so when humans start behaving like cancer cells, She attacks. I also wanted to avoid a JAWS-like critter film. I wanted the LW beasties to all be benign-looking and not overtly aggressive.
De Roche wrote the script in ten days. He showed it to Colin Eggleston, who had worked with him at Crawfords, and Eggleston decided to make the movie. Funds were obtained from Film Victoria and the Australian Film Commission.
Shooting took place in March–April 1977 in Melbourne and near Bega in south-east New South Wales. The ending was originally different according to De Roche:
I wrote an enormously complicated sequence for near the end where the animals give Peter a second chance. They want him to wise up, and he is at the point of doing so when he hears a truck in the distance. He dashes off to the highway, and the animals decide there is no hope. Poetically, they leave it to another man to kill him.
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