Throwback (2013)
Directed by: Travis Bain
Written by: Travis Bain
Starring: Anthony Ring, Melanie Serafin, Shawn Brack, Vernon Wells
THROWBACK (2013)
Written and directed by Travis Bain
Two pest exterminators, Kent and Jack, head into the bush to search for the missing gold of legendary bandit, Thunderclap Newman. Though the duo have no real problem in locating the gold, what they didn’t bank on was discovering Australia’s mythical pre-historic throwback, the Yowie, roaming the bush with an appetite for blood – their blood!
Tongue-in-cheek monster flick THROWBACK combines horror and comedy elements to create an entertaining action-adventure film.
The film opens in the 1800’s before fast-forwarding to present day where the two treasure seekers are making their way through the bush to find Thunderclap’s gold. Once they find it, Kent no longer requires his friend’s assistance and wants to keep all the gold for himself. However, something else is in the bush with them and looking at the size of the footprints they find, it can only be a Yowie – the Australian version of Bigfoot. The warring friends must now try to survive each other as well as the Yowie.
Shawn Brack stars as Jack, the sensitive and sensible treasure hunter who becomes a target from his selfish cohort Kent (Anthony Ring), who’s using Jack purely to help locate the treasure. When their friendship turns violent, they each run into other people roaming the bush – park ranger Rhiannon (Melanie Serafin) and Detective McNab (Mad Max 2 and Commando star Vernon Wells), the latter of whom is investigating the disppearance of a bunch of hikers. Not one of them believes in the mythical Australian bigfoot but that all changes when they see the beastie for themselves.
Made on a micro budget, Travis Bain has used his filmmaking skills and the acting chops of his cast to create an entertaining, modern monster movie. The Yowie, played by Warren Clements, may be a man in a hairy costume but Bain wisely uses glimpses of the beast to frighten the viewer rather than show the beast in all its glory. This tactic was recently used early on in Godzilla, even though their creature was CGI, but the same rules apply. The glimpse of brown fur between the trees, the glint of the Yowie’s eyes, its fingers reaching towards the treasure hunters… all these little things add suspense and create the Yowie into much scarier. Director Travis Bain also uses Yowie POV shots to great effect to further intensify the human fear of the beast. Even the film’s score sets the tension of the scene as the treasure hunters and park ranger make their way through the jungle, doing their best to avoid the creature. Towards the end of the movie, more of the Yowie is revealed but there’s still an element of mystery around the creature as we never really see it in full, and when we do see most of it, it’s only for a few seconds. This helps to keep the fear and mystery of the beast alive.
THROWBACK is an adventure, monster B-movie that is chock full of charm. As a film enthusiast, I can appreciate the effort put into the movie to make it seem bigger than what the budget would allow and that is an achievement in itself. One of the major highlights of the movie is the fact they’ve used humour to give the film a comedic edge. Usually it’s the character of Kent who comes out with the witty lines that reference famous phrases or people (Bindy Irwin, anyone?), though the ending had me dying on my side too.
Cheeky and charismatic, THROWBACK is a neat piece of light adventure-horror entertainment that honours the memory of the monster movies of the past.
Rating: 
Is it just me but was the yowie always on whatever side of the river the people were on? Even when on opposites sides and at one point they thought the thing wouldn’t cross the river, so why was it always on whatever side of the river the people were on even when it seemed they were on opposites sides? Maybe I missed when each character crossed to whatever side the yowie was on. Unless it was really crossing the river?