Welcome to Woop Woop
Encyclopedia
Welcome to Woop Woop is a 1997 Australian-British comedy film
, directed by Stephan Elliott
starring Johnathon Schaech
and Rod Taylor. The film was based on the novel The Dead Heart by Douglas Kennedy
. "Woop Woop" is an Australian colloquialism
referring to a fictional location in the middle of nowhere.
), who after a brief courtship knocks him unconscious and kidnaps him. When he awakes he finds himself "married" to her - not legally - and stranded in Woop Woop, a desolate, dilapidated town hidden within a crater-like rock formation in Aboriginal
territory. The residents are people who lived there at an asbestos mining camp before the land was handed over to the Aborigines; following a tragedy in 1979, Woop Woop was abandoned and literally "erased" from the Australian map. Not content with the deal given to them by the mining company (from Fremantle
), they opted to return to their old lives in Woop Woop. At first they repopulated themselves incestuously, which caused wide mental instability. A rule was then enacted ("Rule #3") which bans residents from sleeping with their relatives. Since then, outsiders like Teddy have been occasionally kidnapped to keep Woop Woop populated.
Their only export is dog food made from road-killed kangaroo
s. The town is run by Angie's father, Daddy-O (Rod Taylor), in an authoritarian manner that he disguises as communal (he and the other town elders keep the best luxuries for themselves in secret while doling out only the usual canned pineapple and sub-par tobacco to the others). The only entertainment available to the residents are old Rodgers & Hammerstein films and soundtracks, the latter of which they play constantly. These are presumably left over from the town's last official contact with the civilized world.
After witnessing another kidnapping, 'Midget' the local hairdresser, get shot to death by Daddy-O during an attempted escape, Teddy soon realizes he will be trapped in Woop Woop for life unless he finds a way out for himself. Initially, he repairs his VW van which had been vandalized by the locals, only to have it vandalized again by Daddy-O. The Australian Cattle Dog
that he adopts is shot as part of 'Dog Day.' He befriends a couple of locals, including the scruffy, affable Duffy, and Krystal, Angie's sister, who help him to confront Daddy-O's iron-fisted reign, and to arrange an escape plan. Duffy, reprimanded by Daddy-O for breaking 'Rule #3,' nonetheless elects to stay in Woop Woop, while Teddy, Krystal, and Krystal's pet cockatoo escape.
.
.
Long awaited as the followup film to Elliot's earlier film release, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
, the uncompleted Welcome to Woop Woop was screened "out of competition" at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival
.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
, directed by Stephan Elliott
Stephan Elliott
Stephan Elliott is an Australian film director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Elliott began his career as an assistant director working in the boom of the Australian film industry of the 1980s....
starring Johnathon Schaech
Johnathon Schaech
Johnathon Schaech is an American actor, writer, and director.-Early life:Schaech was born in Edgewood, Maryland to Joseph, a Baltimore City law enforcement officer, and Joanne Schaech, a human resources executive. He is of German and Italian descent, and was raised Roman Catholic...
and Rod Taylor. The film was based on the novel The Dead Heart by Douglas Kennedy
Douglas Kennedy (writer)
Douglas Kennedy is an internationally renowned and bestselling novelist. His 10 novels havebeen translated in 22 countries. His latest novel, , to be published in paperback with...
. "Woop Woop" is an Australian colloquialism
Australian English vocabulary
Many works giving an overview of Australian English have been published; many of these are humour books designed for tourists or as novelties.One of the first was Karl Lentzner's Dictionary of the Slang-English of Australia and of Some Mixed Languages in 1892. The first dictionary based on...
referring to a fictional location in the middle of nowhere.
Plot
Teddy (Jonathan Schaech) is a New York bird smuggler who goes to Australia to replace a flock of escaped birds after a deal goes awry. While there, he has a wild liaison with a quirky, sexually ravenous girl, Angie (Susie PorterSusie Porter
Susie Porter is a multiple award winning Australian television and film actress.-Television:Susie Porter began her acting career in one episode of House Gang, a short lived television program. She then had small roles in other Australian television programs in the late 1990s, including Big Sky,...
), who after a brief courtship knocks him unconscious and kidnaps him. When he awakes he finds himself "married" to her - not legally - and stranded in Woop Woop, a desolate, dilapidated town hidden within a crater-like rock formation in Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
territory. The residents are people who lived there at an asbestos mining camp before the land was handed over to the Aborigines; following a tragedy in 1979, Woop Woop was abandoned and literally "erased" from the Australian map. Not content with the deal given to them by the mining company (from Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
), they opted to return to their old lives in Woop Woop. At first they repopulated themselves incestuously, which caused wide mental instability. A rule was then enacted ("Rule #3") which bans residents from sleeping with their relatives. Since then, outsiders like Teddy have been occasionally kidnapped to keep Woop Woop populated.
Their only export is dog food made from road-killed kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
s. The town is run by Angie's father, Daddy-O (Rod Taylor), in an authoritarian manner that he disguises as communal (he and the other town elders keep the best luxuries for themselves in secret while doling out only the usual canned pineapple and sub-par tobacco to the others). The only entertainment available to the residents are old Rodgers & Hammerstein films and soundtracks, the latter of which they play constantly. These are presumably left over from the town's last official contact with the civilized world.
After witnessing another kidnapping, 'Midget' the local hairdresser, get shot to death by Daddy-O during an attempted escape, Teddy soon realizes he will be trapped in Woop Woop for life unless he finds a way out for himself. Initially, he repairs his VW van which had been vandalized by the locals, only to have it vandalized again by Daddy-O. The Australian Cattle Dog
Australian Cattle Dog
The Australian Cattle Dog is a breed of herding dog originally developed in Australia for droving cattle over long distances across rough terrain. In the 19th century, New South Wales cattle farmer Thomas Hall crossed the dogs used by drovers in his parents' home county, Northumberland, with...
that he adopts is shot as part of 'Dog Day.' He befriends a couple of locals, including the scruffy, affable Duffy, and Krystal, Angie's sister, who help him to confront Daddy-O's iron-fisted reign, and to arrange an escape plan. Duffy, reprimanded by Daddy-O for breaking 'Rule #3,' nonetheless elects to stay in Woop Woop, while Teddy, Krystal, and Krystal's pet cockatoo escape.
Cast
- Jonathan Schaech as Teddy
- Rod Taylor as Daddy-O
- Susie PorterSusie PorterSusie Porter is a multiple award winning Australian television and film actress.-Television:Susie Porter began her acting career in one episode of House Gang, a short lived television program. She then had small roles in other Australian television programs in the late 1990s, including Big Sky,...
as Angie - Dee SmartDee SmartDee Smart is an Australian actress best known for her roles as Lucinda Croft in Home and Away and Alex St. Clare in Water Rats. She appeared in Home And Away from 1991 to 1993 and in Water Rats from 2000 to 2001...
as Krystal - Richard MoirRichard Moir-Biography:In 1990, Moir was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, the degenerative effects of which gradually brought his acting career to a premature end...
as Reggie - Maggie KirkpatrickMaggie KirkpatrickMaggie Kirkpatrick is an Australian actress, who is best known for her portrayal of the iconic character Joan Ferguson, a sadistic and corrupt lesbian prison officer known to the prisoners as "The Freak" in the popular Australian television soap opera, Prisoner...
as Ginger - Barry HumphriesBarry HumphriesJohn Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
as Blind Wally - Mark Wilson as Duffy
- Paul MercurioPaul MercurioPaul Joseph Mercurio is an Australian actor, dancer and TV presenter. Mercurio is well-known for his lead role in Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom . His father was the character actor Gus Mercurio.- Biography :...
as Midget
Soundtrack
A soundtrack was released by Universal Music GroupUniversal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
.
- "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" - CakeCake (band)Cake is an American alternative rock band from Sacramento, California. Consisting of singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFiore, guitarist Xan McCurdy, bassist Gabe Nelson and drummer Paulo Baldi, the band has been noted for McCrea's sarcastic lyrics and deadpan voice, DiFiore's trumpet parts, and...
- "There is Nothin' Like a DameThere Is Nothing Like a Dame"There is Nothing Like a Dame" is one of the songs from the musical South Pacific. The song was written by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is widely popular in the musical arts, often sung by men's choirs....
" - Reel Big FishReel Big FishReel Big Fish is an American ska punk band from Huntington Beach, California, best known for the 1997 hit "Sell Out". The band gained mainstream recognition in the mid-to-late 1990s, during the third wave of ska with the release of the gold certified album Turn the Radio Off. Soon after, the band... - "Timebomb" - ChumbawambaChumbawambaChumbawamba is a British musical group who have, over a career spanning nearly three decades, played punk rock, pop-influenced music, world music, and folk music...
- "I Can't Say NoI Cain't Say NoI Cain't Say No is a song from the musical play Oklahoma! written by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II....
" - PoeAnn DanielewskiAnne "Annie" Decatur Danielewski , professionally known as Poe, is an American singer and songwriter. She first hit the modern rock charts in the mid-1990s. Poe is the daughter of Polish film director Tad Danielewski and his second wife, Priscilla Machold. She is the sister of author Mark Z.... - "Welcome to Your Life (Woop, Woop)" - Boy GeorgeBoy GeorgeBoy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
- "I Got You BabeI Got You Babe"I Got You Babe" is a 1965 #1 single by American pop music duo Sonny & Cher.-Background and composition:Sonny Bono, a songwriter and record producer for Phil Spector, wrote the lyrics to and composed the music of the song for himself and his then-wife, Cher, late at night in their basement. Session...
" - Merril BainbridgeMerril BainbridgeMerril Bainbridge is an Australian pop music singer and songwriter. Her debut was in 1994 with the single, "Mouth", which peaked at number-one for six consecutive weeks in Australia and became a top five hit in the United States.- Early career :Bainbridge started performing when she was at the...
and Shaggy - "Bali Ha'iBali Ha'i"Bali Ha'i", also spelled "Bali Hai", is a show tune from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.-In musical South Pacific:...
" - MoodswingsMoodswings (band)Moodswings is a musical duo composed of Grant Showbiz and James F.T. Hood. Grant Showbiz was a onetime roadie and guitar tech who later produced albums by The Smiths, Billy Bragg, Silverfish, and Gong. James Hood was a former drummer for The Pretenders, The Impossible Dreamers, Kid Creole & the...
and Neneh CherryNeneh CherryNeneh Mariann Cherry is a Swedish singer-songwriter, rapper, and occasional DJ and broadcaster... - "Dog's Life" - eelsEels (band)Eels is an American indie rock band formed by singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E...
- "You'll Never Walk AloneYou'll Never Walk Alone (song)"You'll Never Walk Alone" is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.In the musical, in the second act, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the female protagonist Julie Jordan, sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to comfort and encourage Julie when her husband, Billy Bigelow, the...
" - Robin S.Robin S.Robin S. is an American singer-songwriter, who scored success in the 1990s with such hit singles as "Show Me Love" and "Luv 4 Luv". She has had three number ones on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.-Career:Robin S... - "Climb Every Mountain" - Peggy WoodPeggy WoodPeggy Wood was an American actress of stage, film and television.-Early career:She was born Mary Margaret Wood in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Eugene Wood, a journalist, and Mary Gardner, a telegraph operator. She was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone...
and Junior VasquezJunior VasquezJunior Vasquez, , is an American club DJ and remixer/producer.-Career:...
Critical reception
Welcome to Woop Woop has an overall approval rating of 29% on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Long awaited as the followup film to Elliot's earlier film release, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot is based on the journey of three drag queens who travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named...
, the uncompleted Welcome to Woop Woop was screened "out of competition" at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival
1997 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Isabelle Adjani *Gong Li *Mira Sorvino *Paul Auster *Tim Burton *Luc Bondy *Patrick Dupond *Mike Leigh *Nanni Moretti *Michael Ondaatje -Feature film competition:...
.