NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Nate This is a very slow moving movie, and the plot is very erratic. The story make very little sense, and is only worth watching once, just to say you did. The movie quality gets 2 out of 10. The acting gets only a 3. I give the plot a 1, the story a 1, and the cover a 1. The 'thriller' connotation is ludicrous. There is not much else to say about this movie other than it was Mel Gibson's first movie. He did a fairly good job, and went on to do bigger and better things. I applaud Mel for choosing this movie, considering it was not very thrilling. Mel Gibson is THE MAN and will continue that way until he retires. I will be reviewing all of his movies because I am collecting them. This is my first Mel Gibson review.

Pepper Anne Viewers won't miss much of the 'Summer City' ('Reign of Fear' for us Yanks) plot if they fastforward to the last forty minutes of this movie, as much of the movie is just filled with scenes that look like minute preparation for a string of Mentos commercials. The ample cheery scenery and happy 70s romp music seem very contradictory to the thriller mood. Add to the mix a indiscernable audio (not that the dialogue matters much, anyways) and slurred slang, it is a pretty boring movie. Four friends--I'm not sure if they're supposed to be teenagers (none of them look younger than 25, but there's some scenes where they look like they're at a school dance)-- take a road trip to kick back, hit the pubs, and go surfing. Tension builds among the group between Sandy, a quiet young man who is angered by the obnoxious, womanizing Boo who seduces a teenaged girl while on their trip in one of his usual one night stands. Meanwhile, the girl's psychotic dad is also looking for Boo out of revenge for what he did to his daughter. Boo is in for a major wake up call. This is essentially the only substance of the film, a very simple story with no major drama or action, and even a let down ending. Despite Mel Gibson being heralded as the star of the movie, his named marqueed in large letters, he is pretty inconsequential to the movie, and has a very minor role.What could've been more like a version of "Deliverance," turned out to be a very boring movie that suffers from many faults as far as story and production values.

cfraser It's been 23 years since I have commented on this film. I was the director and it was my first film. As far as I was concerned it was never finished. Despite the ludicrously low budget it could have been so much better than it turned out. All the leading actors fell into a serious argument with the producer and refused to continue working on the project. I never expected to see it on the screen. The producer and editor padded out the film with meaningless bits of irrelevant stock footage to make the required length of 87mins to qualify for a feature film. As you can imagine I was disappointed and embarrassed. Some parts of the movie actually work very well. There was a lot of spontaneous adlib especially between Mel and Steve. The first time we saw Mel in closeup in a viewing theater someone said "He's going to be a star". I thought so too. One day I'll tell the whole story. It's more complex and funny than the film itself.

BobH-6 With all due respect to the previous reviewer, Mel Gibson is not the star of this 1977 Australian drama, sometimes known as "Coast of Terror." He is, however, very good in his film debut as Scollop, one of four young men on a weekend jaunt set sometime during the early 60's, judging by all the long surfboards and rock music of the era. The real stars are John Jarrat as Sandy, a quiet, introspective young man who is shortly to be married, and Steve Bisley as Boo, whose only focus in life seems to be having a good time, including a brief fling with Sandy's intended. It is the contrast of these two characters and the events that lead to the violent, tragic climax that make the film worth a view.This is a very low budget film that suffers quite a bit from poor sound recording and inconsistent editing. The poor sound, coupled with very thick Australian accents will prompt American viewers to ask "What did he say?" throughout the film. On the plus side, the acting is very good for a low budget film and the Australian locales really add authenticity.In addition to Gibson, this was also Bisley's film debut. They would re-team for George Miller's first "Mad Max" film as fellow police officers. In the United States, their Australian accents were dubbed into "American."