Title: 100 Blood Acres

Opens: June 28, 2013

The year’s only half over but it’s safe to bet Australian dollars to American doughnuts that in 2013 you won’t find a better comic horror film than this. The Australians have it over us this time, so watch out, Eli Roth; Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes are nipping at your heels. Even more amazing is that this is the Cairnes brothers’ debut movie.

In a script loaded with bon mots and dark humor, “100 Blood Acres” separates from the herd of horror by positing that the two bloody farmers, Reg Morgan (Damon Herriman) and Lindsay Morgan (Angus Sampson) may get some rocks off by killing, but their principal motive is economic. Hey, you gotta make a living, even downunder. They take pride in their product, organic fertilizer, which they claim in radio commercials heard over and over is the best, thanks to its super high potassium content. And they don’t get that content from manure but only from human blood and bones. This is fine, as long as they can pick up enough road-kill where their business is located in Adelaide Hills, South Australia, but because drivers may be more careful these days, there’s a shortage of bodies. Obviously, to keep their business booming, they’ve got to find more meat, and where better to get this when road-kill is scarce than from live people! When Sophie (Anna McGahan), her boyfriend James (Oliver Ackland) and their mutual pal Wes (Jamie Kristian) need a lift, they’re picked up by Reg, driven not to their destination but to Reg and Lindsay’s business, tied up and gagged while the brothers are busy chopping up their previous find.

The jokes abound when Sophie and James, the latter held upside down like the unfortunate victim in Eli Roth’s “Hostel 2,” argue about how much sexual experience Sophie may have had during the time they’ve known each other. Never mind that this may be their last hour alive. As though one conflict is not enough, the fertilizer honchos are at each other’s throats, the smaller, more vulnerable Reg furious that he is picked on regularly by his big, burly, bearded brother—pushed around, beaten, strangled half to death.

A hatchet, a pocket knife, a shotgun, a revolver and a pair of hands powerful enough to strangle an elephant make their deadly appearances, while a tub of blood and the inevitable wood-chopper seem unable to distract the pair of love-bird victims from their absurd, jealous argument. When innocent and friendly old Aunt Nancy (Chrissie Page) puts up a spot of tea on her last day in Australia, she has no idea that the Lindsay she likes so much is too irritated to reciprocate her affections. A short-legged, energetic Jack Russell has an active hand in the story as does a motorcycle cop who gets too nosy when he hears yelling and cursing from the boot of a car.

Australian pop songs from the seventies are on target, the script fully deserving its win as Best Screenplay at the 2010 Slamdance Festival. Think twice before buying organic.

Unrated. 90 minutes © 2013 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Overall – B+