Bad Blood (1982)During World War 2, a farmer in New Zealand murders seven people, and the police, along with local Maori trackers, hunt him in the bush country. Director:Mike Newell |
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Bad Blood (1982)During World War 2, a farmer in New Zealand murders seven people, and the police, along with local Maori trackers, hunt him in the bush country. Director:Mike Newell |
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Jack Thompson | ... |
Stan Graham
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Carol Burns | ... |
Dorothy Graham
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Denis Lill | ... |
Ted Best
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Donna Akersten | ... |
Doreen Bond
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Martyn Sanderson | ... |
Les North
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| Marshall Napier | ... |
Trev Bond
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Ken Blackburn | ... |
Tommo Robson
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| John Bach | ... |
Bert Cropp
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John Banas | ... |
Macko Hager
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John Black | ... |
Greg Hutchison
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Karl Bradley | ... |
Maxi Coulson
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Greg Naughton | ... |
Anker Madsen
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Alan Jervis Wilks | ... |
Ralph Frederic
(as Alan Jervis)
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Grant Edgar | ... |
Colin Howatt
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Pat Evison | ... |
Dulcie Lindsay
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During World War 2, a farmer in New Zealand murders seven people, and the police, along with local Maori trackers, hunt him in the bush country.
Before Lord of the Rings came along, most New Zealand films acted as keep out notices to tourists: Utu, Shaker Run, Goodbye Pork Pie, Tongan Ninja all paint it as either constantly raining or just about to. Bad Blood is no exception it's all too easy to see why the place drives Jack Thompson's grouchy and paranoid farmer mad enough to kill several policemen when they come to take his gun for the war effort in this true story about New Zealand's biggest manhunt back in 1942.
Almost completely forgotten and barely seen even on its first release in 1981, it's a powerful and convincing drama that's more concerned with character than action. There's always a tendency to romanticise in this kind of film, but this makes no excuses and presents its pair of well-matched outsiders as pathetic but human - these are the kind of unglamourous, none too bright people most Bonnie and Clydes are rather than the movie image, probably the reason the film was so little seen. Thompson's Stan Graham isn't demonised or caricatured: while he's unable to cope with outsiders, he's genuinely happy when left alone with his family (there's a beautiful scene where he and his wife dance to the faintly heard music of a dance across the road). It's a remarkable performance from Thompson, resisting any temptation to go over the top or add bluster to the role, instead opting for restraint and confusion and misdirected anger, and he's well matched by Carol Burns as his equally unstable wife.
Well worth making the effort to track down, this only appears to be available on an Australian DVD that comes with a brief interview with Thompson at the moment.