Welcome to Woop Woop

Directed by Stephan Elliott, “Welcome to Woop Woop”, was the follow-up film after his smash hit “Priscilla, Queen of the desert”. A black comedy, the film is a satire on the great mythical Australian outback and the people that are said to inhabit it. The film is populated by unsavoury characters, who dress and act repulsively and speak in a crass and offensive dialogue, littered with ockerisms and bush slang. Teddy, a New York con artist flees America and goes on the lam in Australia. Once there is seduced by the sexually voracious Angie and taken to her hometown of Woop Woop where he is effectively imprisoned by the law of Daddy-O, Angie’s tyrannical father. Amongst other eccentric behaviours, the town folk gather nightly to watch “The Sound of music” and “South Pacific” played on a loop at the local drive-in. Elliot confounds viewer expectations offering up more extreme and vulgar outback personalities than could possibly be imagined, making these characters repugnant to watch. The film slyly sends up films such as “Crocodile Dundee” which pandered to the gross stereotypes that so appealed to audiences. Elliot however failed to appeal to anyone with this bizarre and subversive flick, receiving critical brickbats and woeful box office returns.
Cast includes: Johnathon Schaech, Rod Taylor, Susie Porter, Richard Moir, Maggie Kirkpatrick, Barry Humphries and Paul Mercurio