A silver bullet for Australian cinema? Genre movies and the audience debate

Abstract

ABSTRACTThere has been a renaissance in Australian genre cinema in recent years. Indeed, not since the 1980s have Australian genre movies across action, adventure, horror and science fiction among others, experienced such prominence within production, policy discourse and industry debate. Genre movies, typically associated with commercial film-making and entertainment, have been identified as a strategy to improve the box-office performance of Australian feature films and to attract larger audiences. Much of this conversation has revolved around the question of whether or not genre can deliver on these high expectations and transform the unpredictable local film industry into a popular and profitable commercial production sector. However, this debate for the most part has been disconnected from analysis of Australia's genre movie heritage in terms of their position within Australian cinema and their reception with domestic audiences, and how this correlates to contemporary trends. As this article argues, genre production is not a silver bullet that will single-handedly improve the Australian feature film industry's commercial performance. Genre movies have occupied, and continue to occupy, a difficult position within Australian cinema and face numerous challenges in terms of reception with national audiences, limited production scale and enterprise structures, and ongoing tensions between culture and commerce.