The Chain Reaction

The Chain Reaction
Theatrical film poster
Directed by	Ian Barry
Produced by	David Elfick
Written by	Ian Barry
Starring	Steve Bisley Arna-Maria Winchester Ross Thompson Ralph Cotterill Hugh Keays-Byrne Lorna Lesley Richard Moir
Music by	Andrew Thomas Wilson
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Edited by	Tim Wellburn
Production company	Palm Beach Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	25 September 1980
Running time	92 min.
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	A$600,000
Box office	A$796,000 (Australia)

The Chain Reaction (also known as Chain Reaction) is a 1980 Australian independent action/disaster/thriller film directed and written by Ian Barry. The film stars Steve Bisley, also starring in the film Mad Max (1979) and Arna-Maria Winchester. The film's plot is about an engineer badly injured in an accident caused by an earthquake. He knows that the nuclear waste will poison the groundwater and wants to warn the public.

The movie features many actors who were in Mad Max, among them Mel Gibson as a bearded mechanic, though he doesn't appear at all. The taglines used in advertising the film included "A fast drive to Paradise turns into a nuclear nightmare!" and "Mad Max meets The China Syndrome"; the latter referring to the car chase and nuclear accident.

The film was rated M in Australia.

An earthquake in rural Australia causes a dangerous leak at WALDO (acronyms of Western Atomic Longterm Dumping Organisation), a nuclear waste storage facility. Heinrich Schmidt (Ross Thompson) an engineer badly contaminated in the accident, knows that the leak will poison the groundwater for hundreds of miles around and wants to warn the public. His boss, however, is only interested in protecting himself and believes that the accident should be covered up, when in fact the contamination risks thousands of lives. Heinrich escapes from the facility but is badly injured. Lost in the woods and suffering from amnesia, he is rescued by Larry Stilson (Steve Bisley), a car mechanic on holiday, and his wife Carmel (Arna-Maria Winchester). As Heinrich tries to piece together his memories of what happened, his boss' thugs are quickly closing in on the trio.

The film was the idea of director Ian Barry. He had been talking to producer David Elfick about making a film called Sparks about a blind film director, based on a short film he had made, but Elfick thought the subject matter would be too difficult to finance. Barry had written another film, a thriller then entitled The Man at the Edge of the Freeway, and Elfick decided to make that instead. The movie was budgeted at $600,000 but the Australian Film Commission thought it was too high so it was re-budgeted at $450,000. George Miller came on the project as associate producer.