Frenchman's Farm (1987)

Nice effects though.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

"Frenchman's Farm" is one of the most compelling and strangely unsettling mystery/thrillers I've seen in a long while, and it's a damn shame that the film isn't more known or easier available on disc, like it deserves to be. EDIT: apparently the film is available on DVD, so what are you waiting for? It has a great basic premise (although admittedly not without flaws) and the atmosphere is thoroughly ominous, the only exception being overlong images of a music concert. Too many potentially great 80's movies, whether horror or not, were ruined by long stretches of music edited into the story, but luckily enough the plot of "Frenchman's Farm" is strong enough to overcome that error and, besides, it only occurs once. Whilst on the road all by herself, young law student Jackie gets stuck in an unexplained time warp. She arrives at a remote farm but before she can talk to anyone she witnesses a creepy guy chopping off the head of a farmer with a shovel. He then comes after her, but she's transferred back to modern times before he can get to her. During the next few days, Jackie discovers the murder really occurred 40 years ago and an innocent man got charged with it. She convinces her disbelieving boyfriend to help investigate the matter and together they reveal some strange facts in the little town where the Frenchman's Farm is located. The neighbors are friendly and helpful but appear to hide a secret; the place bathes in a strange lavender odor and what exactly happened on the continuously reoccurring date of the 29th of February? The slowly unfolding mystery plot "Frenchman's Farm" is extremely suspenseful and absorbing. Parallel with the kids' investigation, local authorities also dig up the case from the archives and out the roots of the case date back all the way to time of Napoleon and guillotine executions. The events in the film demand your full attention and then still it sometimes gets too confusing and overly complex. It's also too sad the time warp never fully gets clarified. The warp is a nice and sinister given, and undeniably essential to the story, but at the same time it's the only truly implausible obstacle in the otherwise impeccable story. "Frenchman's Farm" primarily isn't a horror film, but the depicted murder at the beginning is extremely grisly. Jackie's nightmare about her boyfriend beheaded by the guillotine is truly disturbing as well, not in the least because it's the only scene filmed in eerie black and white. The last couple of twists are unpredictable, shocking as hell and – in my humble amateur opinion – uplift the wholesome to being a true masterpiece. The killer is one of the creepiest guys I've ever seen! Numerous close-ups reveal his dead-staring eyes and the way he carries around a pickax alone is already horrifying. The actor, Phil Brock, should have appeared in more films of the same kind. "Frenchman's Farm" is a rare diamond in the rough 80's swamp and it urgently demands a glorious rediscovery by fans of cult cinema. Masterful film, and finally one that fully lives up to the promotional writing on the VHS-cover, namely 'A Chilling Trip into the Unknown".

An 80s Aussie lassie goes for a drive in the country and suddenly finds herself in the 40s (cue: 40s car and music.) She pops out of her car to figure out what's going on, which is a bad idea because she witnesses a murder! Ooooh! She time-warps back to the 80s, and enlists her boyfriend to help her solve the mystery of the 40s murder. Eh. This really isn't that bad, it's just way too long. It almost feels like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" and really would have worked better as a half hour short. The villain is indeed creepy and it does have an eerie atmosphere going for it, but the bigger picture is just too bland. Admittedly, I was distracted throughout most of the film, but it was hard not to be.

I was quite surprised when I put on Frenchman's Farm to watch to discovered the bloody thing was Australian. I was expecting a run of the mill US slasher flick but it was neither of those. Maybe it is churlish or mean spirited of me to react in such as way to the produce of my own country but on the whole Australian films are really bad, Australian horror films included. I think it has a lot to do with the movies trying self consciously to be distinctly Australian instead of just telling a story or by trying to ape US releases but without the technical expertise or budgets- even Australian shlock isn't up to scratch. As it turns out the film wasn't actually all that bad- okay it wasn't very good either but it wasn't painfully bad as I feared it would be the second I heard strong ocker accents.As I said the film isn't really a slasher. I suppose its a horror/mystery/ghost story if you had genreise it. The movie opens with our heroine Jackie (Tracy Tainsh) leaving her parents place in rural Queensland (Whilst the countryside is being ravaged by bushfire no less, she is apparently in a hurry). Whilst she is driving across the countryside she is unknowingly transported back in time to the 1940's. The first sign of this is the radio starts playing 40's music, which came as something of a relief given the bad '80's pop she was listening to. Anyway, she soon finds herself witness to the murder of a man in an Australian army uniform whilst he is digging in a field. She is chased by the assailant, a crazy curly-headed dude with an axe but escapes and is transported back to the present (Well the '80's- which we all wish was the present- don't we?). She eventually accepts she had been back in time when she tracks down a newspaper article describing the murder she witnessed, which is fair enough given the biggest clues she had been given were the archaic music and cars, references to World War II as a recent event and old newspapers. The man identified in the story as the murderer is not the man she saw doing the killing. The rest of the movie involves Tracy and her mulleted boyfriend Barry (David Reyne), who sings in a bad '80's band, investigating.Unfortunately that is pretty much it. Most of this plodding movie follows the two of them wandering around the farm (named because it original owner was French, why couldn't he be from Abyssinia) and the nearby town. This consists of endlessly discussing the history of the place with the locals, digging holes etc. The mystery isn't that interesting and quite predictable- basically a ghostly Frenchman protecting his loot and not a lot happens till the very end. There isn't even that much in the way of suspense or tension other than one false scare scene whilst our leads are skinny-dipping (Sadly we get a better look at Barry than the more fetching Tracy). There is little flair in the directing and the leads are kind of dull. Tracy Tainsh looks good in a pair of shorts which she is kind enough to walk around in for most of the running time and is a decent actress but her character is unexciting and Barry (How Ocker can you get name-wise short of calling him Bruce) is a not that interesting a fellow either a bit of a dullard at times. The kind of guy who sees no problem ethically or legally, despite being a law student, with breaking into a crypt and opening up someone's coffin. Fortunately they get through his skepticism scenes fairly quickly, which makes the character rather trusting but too many scenes of protagonists trying to prove to a partner that such and such supernatural event happened can really slow a movie down and this movie really doesn't need any slowing down.There is a subplot involving a couple of policemen looking into the case which mostly involved spooky things happening to the police computer. To the modern viewer '80s computers are already weird and spooky, not to mention clunky and charming. Whenever they try and consult the police database about the murders it prints out random clues and the files are erased. Needless to say this is kind of goofy- that the forces at work which seem otherwise restricted to one small geographic locations can reach out like this. I'm guessing this plot element was considered innovative at the time, when computers were still a fairly new thing. To be pedantic, it also seems weird that there is no paper copy of any of the police records. These characters don't' really do much either and do not really become involved in the main plot until the very end.As mentioned not much happens until the end and even then it's not all that much. There aren't any big revelations or surprises. A human villain is revealed along with the ghostly one but his role in events is unclear and underwhelming in terms of motivation and action. It's hardly a surprise either, even it weren't obvious from the get go he was up to something because of his role in the movie blatant clues such as other characters frequently commenting on him being suspicious give it away. Jackie and Barry don't end up doing much and nor do the police.The movie does have a few things going for it. The title character is a fairly effective villain- he certainly looks crazy and rather creepy. A ghostly Frenchman- brrr. I also got a nostalgic chuckle out of 80's Australianisms -the hairstyles, music, acting style etc. Frenchman's Farm is an okay way to spend a 100 minutes but I wouldn't seek it by any means and it's biggest plus in my book was simply not being grating and annoying as I had initially feared it might be.

I came across this movie whilst going through a 80's b-movie phase. What attracted us to it was the trailer including the distressed expression on the aforementioned Frenchmans face.....or so we thought. As the story developed it turned into your run of the mill horror, the chases, the screams, the gory(as gory as a 15 rating gets) and then the ending. But this one film did not have your ordinary ending, a great twist on a classic tale. I only wish other films could have been so inventive. A true classic, worthy of all the praise it recieves, if not for the sheer crappiness of the script but for the greatness of the end.