Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on January 8, 2008, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
If there’s any way to deflect charges of sadism from a bloody survival-horror movie these days, it’s to mete out retribution against the villains that’s far more graphic than the abuse they subject their victims to. It’s not giving away much to reveal that Storm Warning’s imperiled couple, barrister Rob (Robert Taylor) and his girlfriend Pia (Nadia Farés), eventually turn the tables on the degenerates who have tormented them for the movie’s first two-thirds, but it would be spoiling the gruesome fun to describe just what kind of justice is inflicted on them. Suffice to say that this is one Dimension Extreme release (hitting DVD next month) that lives up to the label; there’s blood and mangled flesh all over the place in the final reel or so, to the point where you can almost agree with the audio-commentating filmmakers when they say that there’s a touch of sympathy for the sickos by the film’s end.
What makes this Australian production work—in the sense of building up hatred for the bad guys without their deeds becoming insufferably foul, to the point where you tune out of the scenario—lies in director Jamie Blanks and scripter Everett DeRoche’s emphasis on emotional over physical cruelty, as portrayed by a strong cast with a gradual but inexorable ratcheting up of tension. Rob and Pia are on a boating jaunt around the Australian coastline when the former, stubbornly and not too wisely, decides to take them through some mangrove swamps before heading home. After the tide goes out and strands them, and nasty weather blows up, they seek shelter from the rain and thunder at what appears to be an unoccupied farmhouse. No sooner has Rob made the unfortunate discovery of a huge marijuana crop in a back shed than rifle-toting brothers Jimmy (David Lyons) and the mentally challenged Brett (Mathew Wilkinson) turn up, much displeased to find intruders in their home. And their dad, called Poppy (John Brumpton), is going to be really mad if and when he finds out.
While the basics of what follows aren’t unexpected—the rangy siblings lech after Pia and degrade Rob’s masculinity—the filmmakers and actors keep the creepiness level high, maintaining an uncertainty as to just how far Jimmy and Brett, and eventually Poppy, are going to take the mistreatment of their uninvited guests. Lyons in particular (who, it’s surprising to learn on the commentary, had never acted in a feature before) makes a potent and thoroughly believable impression as an Aussie redneck with no tolerance for Rob’s superior attitude. As the heroine who starts out squeamish about killing a fish but eventually finds herself constructing elaborate devices to mutilate her human tormentors, Farés handles Pia’s transition with sufficient conviction to overcome questions of plausibility.
Blanks’ well-paced direction of the horrific drama is matched by a strong technical acuity; Storm Warning marks his independent, tight-scheduled comeback after his more expensive but compromised studio films Urban Legend and Valentine, but it bears the polish of a much costlier feature. Karl von Moller’s cinematography is lush and eerie, setting a fine, oppressive mood (and looks great in the DVD’s widescreen transfer), while Robby Perkins’ production design creates a lair for the bad boys that you’d never, ever want to spend time in, with both interiors and exteriors impressively created on soundstages. Justin Dix and Gab Facchinei headed up the team that created the cringingly realistic makeup FX, while Blanks himself composed the score, which supports the tension for the first hour before going as bonkers as Jimmy does in the climactic scenes.
The only major supplement on the disc (which sports a finely detailed 5.1 sound mix) is the aforementioned commentary, which starts out with Blanks, DeRoche, Taylor, Dix and von Moller and is subsequently joined by Perkins, producer Pete! Ford (yes, that’s how he’s billed) and executive producer Mark Pennell. Blanks is the most vocal but everyone gets a chance to contribute, and the result is a lively, informative (and occasionally bawdy) track. Here you’ll find out that DeRoche first wrote the screenplay 30 years ago—and that his wife thought up the very nastiest gag; that creating a good deal of the onscreen rain digitally was a necessity due to a Down Under drought at the time of filming; and that Poppy’s unsettling late-film monologue (which formed the basis for the teaser, included here along with a trailer that gives away far too much) was written during preproduction just to give potential actors something to audition with. This extra is good enough that you can forgive other potential supplements, mentioned by the commentators, that don’t appear: a deleted scene establishing Pia’s “MacGyver-type” skills, Brumpton’s intense audition and the complete Adventures of Mr. Velvet, the porn film of a particularly perverse, um, species that Poppy and his boys enjoy.
