Irony is a vicious bitch.
When the global pandemic arrived three months ago, and life as we knew it ground to a halt, everyone everywhere had nothing but time on their hands. Time to cook, time to clean, time to do the things they enjoyed the most.
All I wanted to do was keep my family safe and catch up on a stack of unwatched movies. And so I tried. And tried.
Yet, none of them brought me joy. None of them entertained. None of them distracted from the very real threat just outside.
For much of May and June, I began to believe that my days as a film critic, as a writer even, had come to an end.
Two Heads Creek
4 out of 5 stars.
Rated: Unrated
Run Time: 85 minutes
How odd and funny then that it took two independent films about cannibals, no less, to remind me of the transportive and transformative power of cinema.
The first movie, “The Dinner Party,” was an unexpected blast, courtesy of a writer-director whose past work I had heavily criticized. You can read that review here.
But the second movie, “Two Heads Creek,” was even better, even bloodier, and funny as all hell.
Best of all, it’s eerily opportune.
“Two Heads Creek” is the story of twins Norman (Jordan Waller, who also wrote the script) and Annabelle (Kathryn Wilder), who were adopted by a Polish butcher in the United Kingdom, and who suddenly find themselves the target of harassment and violence during a nationalist uprising.
Through a series of coincidences that only exist in movies, Annabelle and Norman learn they were adopted while attending a wake for the butcher. Then they discover a postcard in the butcher’s flat that points to their birth mother being from a rural community in Australia called Two Heads Creek.
That’s right, road trip!
Norman and Annabelle book passage to Two Heads Creek through a shady tourism company, and when they arrive, they realize just how far off the grid they’ve fallen. The town, for lack of a better word, is a collection of rickety shanties, and the residents are an eccentric, unnerving cast of characters straight out of a horror movie.
But everyone remembers their mum, Mary, whose home still stands, abandoned and dilapidated on the outskirts of town.
“She was so full of life, until she was dead,” the local barkeep says.
A creepy little girl tells Norman that some folks call him the ‘Plague Killer’ because all the local pigs died the day he was born. Another local asks Annabelle, a commercial actress, to sign a box of laxatives, the one product she’s known for pitching.
“You don’t see anything wrong with these people?” Annabelle asks him.
“No, I just think they’re Australian,” Norman replies.
Their arrival in Two Heads Creek also coincides with the community’s annual independence celebration. It turns out the Australian government has made a point, and a profit, mostly from under-the-table payoffs, to ignore the area for years.
Before long, Norman and Annabelle will learn why that is, too.
So as not to spoil the gruesome, gory greatness that is the film’s third act, let’s just say the dead may not be dead, Norman and Annabelle may have a sibling, always duck when a barbed-wire boomerang is whizzing toward your head and whatever you do, don’t try the tender stew meat that serves as the community’s culinary cornerstone.
“Two Heads Creek” is wholly surprising, refreshingly original and the comical carnage that erupts across the screen thankfully brings a welcome respite.
The film is now available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime, iTunes and other streaming platforms.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
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