I previously mentioned this theme as something I might want to do a favorite list on, but having realized that I just haven’t seen enough of these, I decided that maybe I’ll try this instead. So, here is a very subjective ranking of all the Australian horror movies I’ve seen.

Note: The specific reason I’m interested in this topic is that I like these movies. I do like horror in general, so this is not surprising, but even taking that into consideration, I’ve found that Australians have been able to produce a lot of interesting horror over the years. Of course, there is a distinct possiblity that due to the amount of movies from Australia that reach my awareness is small, that there is a natural bias here in that I’m just not seeing the bad ones, but don’t worry about that.

I took out movies that are listed as Australian/US as they feel distinctly American even if they were shot in Australia (this means Invisible Man from 2020, Cargo and Better Watch Out, all good movies though).

Here’s the list from worst to best, purely in my opinoin. Which is of course always correct.

11. Celia (1989)

Celia is a bit too imaginative for her own good. This actually includes quite weird themes for a horror movie as there is political drama about the right to own pet rabbits (which were a problem in Australia as they are an invasive species).

Weirdly, one of the strong points of the movie is Rebecca Smart, the actor behind the nominal character. Considering that she was just a kid, that is rare.

10. Alison’s Birthday (1981)

So, apparently there are Celtic structures in Australia…

Just before her friend is killed Alison is warned by a spirit possessing that friend that she will be murdered on her 19th birthday. On that date she is visiting her adoptive parents with her boyfriend coming along but staying elsewhere. Her parents try to keep the couple apart, but the boyfriend keeps prying into the situation and it turns out that there is a very good reason.

This is kind of a clumsy and amateurish film, but I like the themes and while it doesn’t completely work, at least they tried to do something different.

9. Sissy (2022)

Cecilia, a famous influencer, has just reunited with her old friend Emma and is now joining her on her engagement party. Cecilia’s presence is not appreciated by everyone, which leads to an altercation which in turn leads to an accident she then attempts to cover up. This isn’t as funny as it would like to be, but funny enough to be good.

8. Wolf Creek (2005)

Me being me, my first question was why would there be a Wolf Creek in Australia, as there are no wolves. Turns out, its actually Wolfe Creek, the site of a famous crater in the middle of nowhere.

The movie is about a threesome of young adults visiting the nominal Wolfe Creek Crater, but during their return trip their car breaks down leading to them being kidnapped and tortured before a desperate escape attempt. This is a very intensive movie. There’s definitely a lot of DNA from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre but with some Australian flavor.

7. Sting (2024)

Considering that arachnophobia is often listed as one of the most common phobias, it is weird how few horror movies around spiders actually exist. Maybe its a more practical limitation, as the practical effects can’t be easy and believable CG is still too expensive for most horror movies.

With that in mind, this is almost like gateway horror. Its funny and not that gory in the end. The mostly practical effect are cool.

6. You Won’t Be Alone (2022)

I thought about leaving this out because I left out the American feeling movies, but this is something different. The languages spoken in this Australian movie are Macedonian and Aromanian. There’s 1.6 million and 210 thousand native speakers of these languages respectively. The latter is so obscure you can’t even search IMDb for that language. I should note that I am a sucker for this kind of folk horror, the kind that takes weird superstitions seriously and uses them to its advantage.

The movie starts with a woman trying to save her infant daughter from a witch and in order to do that she proposes a deal with the witch. The daughter will become one as well. Later, when this happens, the original witch is now resentful that her apprentice is trying her best to fit into human society. This is a different kind of conflict and I love that.

5. Lake Mungo (2008)

It is hard to make a good found footage film as there appears to be only so much you can do with the medium as the novelty has worn off a long, long time ago, but this one works. This is mostly an interview style attempt to dig into the mystery of a drowned teenage girl, who apparently was living a double life and strange things have began to happen after her death.

4. Talk to Me (2022)

A group of kids have weird porcelain hand and if you take the hand, you can contact the dead. However, there’s risks involved as we are shown at the start of the film when a young man commits horrific crimes. So, when a young woman tries too hard to talk to her mother, things go bad.

I love the hand and the look of it. It has history, but it isn’t explained. There’s just some rumors about its origins.

3. Loved Ones (2009)

The young woman on the cover of this movie is holding a drill. That has a very dark purpose in this movie and it is not as simple as killing someone.

So, there’s a girl who asks a boy to be her prom date. He declines, she doesn’t take it well. She, with the help of her father, kidnaps him for their own little messed up date. The dynamic between her and her father is just creepy and from the beginning we get hints that this is not their first victim. I guess this falls under torture porn, but the setup is very different and the characters are interesting enough to make this actually good.

2. Babadook (2014)

This is most seen movie on this list by quite a large margin (with roughly 50% ratings on IMDb than the next most rated movie, Talk to Me, and over three times as many ratings as the third most rated movie, Wolf Creek). Yet, it doesn’t have an MPAA rating in the US, which I find to be kind of weird, but then again, the MPAA system is in no way official and it is up to the theater whether they want to care about it. Now, I shouldn’t call a ten year old movie a classic, but I’m going to, because this is already exactly that.

From Alfred Eaker on 366 Weird Movies:

After watching Babadook (2014), I am thoroughly convinced that, from here on out, producers need to consign direction of horror films to the girls. They are so much better at it than those dullard boys. Written and directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook is too good for genre fanboys, whose diet is commonly relegated to sophomoric cravings for trite-tasting tawdry titillation. Kent’s Babadook is for far more refined palates.

1. Relic (2020)

You know when you see a movie on Rotten Tomatoes with a high Critics Score and you think to yourself that maybe you should look into this? Well, you know when you see a movie with a high Critics Score and a low Audience Score and think to yourself I NEED TO SEE THIS? Only me? I actually know its not only me. There’s many out there who think of this as a sign of quality. Relic has a Critics Score of 91% and an Audience Score of 51%. So, it is likely you will hate this while weirdos like me love this. Although, it is not actually that weird. Its just a family drama about dementia cloaked into a slow moving and atmospheric horror movie. And those are the best horror movies. They are actually about something completely different. And, oh yeah, this was also directed by a woman.