By Erin Free
Way back in 2000, the world was a very, very different place. There was no social media, the internet still had training wheels, there were these things called video stores, streaming was something you did to celebrate, Donald Trump was just a b-grade celebrity, and if you said the word Kardashians, the biggest response you would have gotten would have been from Star Trek fans. The world was also a very different place for veteran journalist, screenwriter, author, all-round pop culture maven, and highly valued FilmInk contributor Anthony O’Connor. In 2000, O’Connor was high on horror films and just scraping by as a writer. It was in amongst this messy ferment that O’Connor penned his first screenplay, a pithy, savvy, authentic and very funny work that would eventually become the feature film Angst.
Directed by first timer Daniel Nettheim (who would go on to direct the Willem Dafoe-starring feature film The Hunter and acclaimed TV series such as Doctor Who, Ash Vs Evil Dead, Broadchurch, Whitechapel, The Twelve, Hunters, and many, many more), Angst is the hilariously ribald tale of Dean (Sam Lewis), a cynical, unlucky-in-love video store clerk who falls hard for Abi Tucker’s Goth chick May, while staggering through a slacker-than-slack existence with his two flatmates, wannabe comedian Ian (Justin Smith) and hopeless pothead Jade (Jessica Napier). A fun and entertaining coming-of-age flick with a big heart, Angst was warmly received upon its cinema release, but eventually fell right off the cinematic radar, with no DVD release and a complete non-presence. Seemingly lost to the cruel and gristly sands of time, and never shown again, Angst has been duly dusted off and will now enjoy its first cinema screening (in glorious 35mm, no less!) in over twenty years at The Inner West Film Fest.
How does it feel to be talking about Angst again after twenty-plus years??!!
“It’s a bloody weird feeling, I’ve got to tell you! Angst was a film I started writing when I was nineteen, so we’re talking almost thirty years ago now. I was just a scruffy gronk who worked in half a dozen video shops and scribbled his thoughts down on whatever was close to hand. And that, somehow, became a movie. Seeing it again is like a walk down memory lane for me personally, but also a look back at a time in Australia that’s mostly gone. Back when video shops were everywhere, Kings Cross was filthy and crime filled, and social media had yet to rot our collective minds.”
What was your reaction to the cinema release of Angst? Did it pan out as you’d hoped and expected?
“I remember it came out to some nice reviews (David Stratton and Megan Spencer were both big fans, bless them), and then it just sort of vanished without a trace. I think it was probably a bit niche for Australia at the time, and I’m not sure a comedy that references Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci was exactly brimming with mainstream appeal, but it was definitely a bummer to not find a wider audience. However, fast forward a year and it was a big hit on video. Huge. Like, always rented out and very frequently stolen. So many video shops had their VHS copies flogged it was like the most regularly shoplifted movie in Australia. This was back when you had to do your movie piracy in store. It was a different time.”
Angst has a very autobiographical feel to it…how closely does it hue to your own life as a (slightly) younger man? Where were you at when you were writing it? Physically and mentally…
“I desperately wanted to be a horror writer at the time, and I’d penned a couple of awful, derivative genre scripts that no one wanted (with good reason). So, then I started writing something a bit more personal (although exaggerated for comedic effect), about a young guy living in Kings Cross, looking for love yadda yada yada. It was a bit self-indulgent, but it was also honest and heartfelt and people like writer/mentor Steve Worland, producer Jonathon Green and director Daniel Nettheim took notice and would be instrumental in its development. As for where I was physically and mentally? Dude, I was nineteen. I was an absolute shocker. Cheerfully off my tits and staggering through life punching cones, watching movies and going to goth clubs. I’m fairly certain I was absolutely intolerable, although blissfully unaware of the fact.”
The influence of Kevin Smith can be felt in the setting and sense of youthful ennui…did you have any other cinematic touchstones when you were penning the film?
“Yeah, Kevin Smith’s Clerks was a huge influence, obviously, and kind of unscrewed my skull and filled it with joy when I first saw it at the Valhalla in Glebe in 1994. I was also very into those walking and talking films of the 70s, 80s and 90s. I liked a lot of Woody Allen, Albert Brooks, Richard Linklater, Hal Hartley and Jim Jarmusch, anything with a bunch of people banging on about life in coffee shops and parks. I tried to get some of my horror sensibility in there too, with a bunch of scenes meant to resemble the gorgeous Italian horror flicks I loved, some of which you see when Dean and Jade get baked and watch together. I think Daniel Nettheim did such a great job making the film visually appealing; it’s really a gorgeous-looking flick. I showed Angst to the great Tom Savini after we’d worked together on the horror flick Redd Inc. (aka Inhuman Resources) and he said it was ‘beautiful.’”
How involved were you with the production of the film? Did you work much with Daniel Nettheim during the shoot? You appeared as Toaster Junkie, of course…
“A large part of the shoot was in Kings Cross, right near my dingy apartment, so I visited a fair bit and the night shoot for my scene as Toaster Junkie was a busy time, but I wasn’t super involved in any professional capacity. I came to sit in and observe when I could. I remember being there when Abi and Sam escaped the suburbs half naked in animal masks. That was a wild night in sleepy Strathfield. There was another night when I realised, as I came home from a club, that they’d dressed the exterior of the video shop where I actually worked as “Video Boy” (the name of the video shop in the film) and I felt like I’d somehow wandered into my own imagination. It was a very strange, scary and exciting time.”
Sam Lewis was great as Dean, but he hasn’t been seen on screen for a while now…do you know what he’s up to now?
“I have no idea! I haven’t talked to Sam in, like, 15-20 years. If anyone out there knows, please get in touch. I would love to have Sam there for the screening at The Inner West Film Fest.”
Will you be sitting in on this special screening at The Inner West Film Fest? Have you revisited Angst much since the initial release?
“Yeah mate, for sure. I’ll be there and I think a bunch of other people involved will be as well. I probably haven’t sat down and watched Angst in at least a decade, and that would have been a low-res rip from a video master. I’m really keen to see the old girl in gorgeous 35mm with a crowd.”
You’re still very much around the local industry…how much have things changed since the release of Angst? Apart from the obvious, like video stores, social media etc etc…
“I think one of the biggest changes is that Australia is a legit player in the genre film space. Like, Mad Max: Fury Road and the upcoming Furiosa, not to mention the one-two punch of Talk To Me and Late Night with the Devil…Aussies are making waves in the horror space. That wasn’t the case in the 90s. In fact, I sat through numerous meetings in which I was told that there would ‘never be’ a big Australian horror movie and that I should stop trying. I’m really, profoundly and from the core of my being delighted that that way of thinking has been proven to be utterly wrong.”
The film proved a sound launching pad for some very talented Aussies (cinematographer Tristan Milani, Daniel Nettheim, composer David Thrussell, Abi Tucker, Jessica Napier, Justin Smith etc)…would you like to take this opportunity to hoover up some credit for their success?
“Hah, I would love to take credit for any of those names, however I suspect it was their inherent talent that gave them long, successful careers. I did push pretty hard to get David Thrussell on board, mind you, because I was (and still am) a huge fan of his music projects Snog, Black Lung and Soma. So…maybe a partial credit? But ultimately Australia is absolutely chockers with industry talent and that was such an amazing crew to work with.”
Finally, are there any secrets you can tell us about Angst that we might not know? We won’t tell anyone else…wink, wink.
“Angst has been MIA for a long time now, and basically impossible to find. So, a screening like this provides a huge boost to its profile. But more than that, if this screening is a successful one (ie. with a buttload of people in attendance) then it might lead to a digital release of this lost Aussie cult classic. So, if you’re a fan of the movie, or a fan of indie Aussie content in general, come down to The Inner West Film Fest and support homegrown movies about that bygone and mysterious era… the late 1990s! Don’t forget your potato bong.”
Angst screens at The Inner West Film Fest on Sunday, April 21 at 2:00pm at Dendy Newtown. Click here for all information and to buy tickets.
