Strange Country Transistor (https://transistor.fm) https://feeds.transistor.fm/strange-country You made it. Welcome. Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror. Not as a curiosity. Not as camp. As a body of work that deserves the same serious attention as anything coming out of the US or Europe. More, honestly. The films are the starting point, not the destination. Each episode uses them as a lens into something bigger. Colonial guilt. Landscape as threat. The fears a country buries in its fiction. The people who shaped what fear looks like down here, past and present. This corner of world cinema has been ignored for too long. We're here to fix that, and we're really glad you're along for the ride. © 2026 Mat Dalby 7583534a-46ab-58a5-b00e-2186f4614914 yes Issac Haynes en Sat, 30 May 2026 10:13:35 +1000 Sat, 30 May 2026 10:14:09 +1000 https://www.strangecountry.com.au https://img.transistorcdn.com/Ac-4QAK1pQaEi6HOuX9QM7-zg_FE7wv8vcw4y1AG2JU/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS84MzEx/ZDJhNWE1ZTFjMTBi/NTI2ODg1NWVkODRh/NGY2ZS5qcGc.jpg Strange Country https://www.strangecountry.com.au episodic Mat Dalby You made it. Welcome. Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror. Not as a curiosity. Not as camp. As a body of work that deserves the same serious attention as anything coming out of the US or Europe. More, honestly. The films are the starting point, not the destination. Each episode uses them as a lens into something bigger. Colonial guilt. Landscape as threat. The fears a country buries in its fiction. The people who shaped what fear looks like down here, past and present. This corner of world cinema has been ignored for too long. We're here to fix that, and we're really glad you're along for the ride. You made it. Australian horror, New Zealand horror, horror podcast, Ozploitation, film history, genre film, horror cinema, The Babadook, Wolf Creek, Lake Mungo, Antipodean horror Mat Dalby No No Strange Country — Episode 3: The New Wave 3 3 Strange Country — Episode 3: The New Wave full 7ae14025-331b-4a5e-bc08-e4e416cc46cc https://strangecountry.com.au/episode-3 July 2023. Two brothers from Brisbane who used to throw each other off things on YouTube made a horror film for four and a half million dollars. It made ninety-two million at the box office.

Something had changed.

Episode 3 of Strange Country covers the last ten years of ANZ horror — and asks what shifted. The first wave pointed outward, at the landscape, at the vastness. The new wave has turned inward. Into the body. Into the home. Into grief that has no name. And underneath all of it, an older, harder question is starting to get louder: who does the land actually belong to?

We cover Talk to Me, Relic, Lake Mungo, Hounds of Love, Killing Ground, You'll Never Find Me, The Moogai, Mārama — and two films playing at the Sydney Film Festival right now: Leviticus and Saccharine.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Talk to Me (2023), Relic (2020), Lake Mungo (2008), Hounds of Love (2016), Killing Ground (2016), You'll Never Find Me (2023), The Moogai (2024), Mārama (2025), Leviticus (2026), Saccharine (2026)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> July 2023. Two brothers from Brisbane who used to throw each other off things on YouTube made a horror film for four and a half million dollars. It made ninety-two million at the box office.

Something had changed.

Episode 3 of Strange Country covers the last ten years of ANZ horror — and asks what shifted. The first wave pointed outward, at the landscape, at the vastness. The new wave has turned inward. Into the body. Into the home. Into grief that has no name. And underneath all of it, an older, harder question is starting to get louder: who does the land actually belong to?

We cover Talk to Me, Relic, Lake Mungo, Hounds of Love, Killing Ground, You'll Never Find Me, The Moogai, Mārama — and two films playing at the Sydney Film Festival right now: Leviticus and Saccharine.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Talk to Me (2023), Relic (2020), Lake Mungo (2008), Hounds of Love (2016), Killing Ground (2016), You'll Never Find Me (2023), The Moogai (2024), Mārama (2025), Leviticus (2026), Saccharine (2026)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 22:39:38 +1000 Mat Dalby Mat Dalby 1589 July 2023. Two brothers from Brisbane who used to throw each other off things on YouTube made a horror film for four and a half million dollars. It made ninety-two million at the box office.

Something had changed.

Episode 3 of Strange Country covers the last ten years of ANZ horror — and asks what shifted. The first wave pointed outward, at the landscape, at the vastness. The new wave has turned inward. Into the body. Into the home. Into grief that has no name. And underneath all of it, an older, harder question is starting to get louder: who does the land actually belong to?

We cover Talk to Me, Relic, Lake Mungo, Hounds of Love, Killing Ground, You'll Never Find Me, The Moogai, Mārama — and two films playing at the Sydney Film Festival right now: Leviticus and Saccharine.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Talk to Me (2023), Relic (2020), Lake Mungo (2008), Hounds of Love (2016), Killing Ground (2016), You'll Never Find Me (2023), The Moogai (2024), Mārama (2025), Leviticus (2026), Saccharine (2026)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> Talk to Me, The Babadook, Relic, Lake Mungo, Hounds of Love, The Moogai, Mārama, Leviticus, Saccharine, Sydney Film Festival, Australian horror, New Zealand horror, horror podcast, ANZ horror No Issac Haynes Strange Country — Episode 2: Peter Jackson's Bloody Education 2 2 Strange Country — Episode 2: Peter Jackson's Bloody Education full 7a7697ce-7e49-4cae-958c-dd466c29d0db https://strangecountry.com.au/episode-2 In 1983, a nineteen-year-old in Pukerua Bay pointed a camera at his friends and started shooting. He had no money, no film school, and no crew. Four years later, Bad Taste existed.

Episode 2 of Strange Country goes to New Zealand — to the backyard where Peter Jackson invented himself as a filmmaker, and to the question that's been nagging at the edges of this show since Episode 1. Everyone assumes Jackson invented New Zealand horror. They're wrong. And that's exactly where things get interesting.

We cover Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), the strange political accident that accidentally funded New Zealand's film industry, and the forty-year structural silence that kept Māori filmmakers away from cameras — and what that absence means for everything that came after.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), Sleeping Dogs (1977), Ngāti (1987)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at www.strangecountry.com.au

]]> In 1983, a nineteen-year-old in Pukerua Bay pointed a camera at his friends and started shooting. He had no money, no film school, and no crew. Four years later, Bad Taste existed.

Episode 2 of Strange Country goes to New Zealand — to the backyard where Peter Jackson invented himself as a filmmaker, and to the question that's been nagging at the edges of this show since Episode 1. Everyone assumes Jackson invented New Zealand horror. They're wrong. And that's exactly where things get interesting.

We cover Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), the strange political accident that accidentally funded New Zealand's film industry, and the forty-year structural silence that kept Māori filmmakers away from cameras — and what that absence means for everything that came after.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), Sleeping Dogs (1977), Ngāti (1987)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at www.strangecountry.com.au

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 22:37:11 +1000 Mat Dalby Mat Dalby 1399 In 1983, a nineteen-year-old in Pukerua Bay pointed a camera at his friends and started shooting. He had no money, no film school, and no crew. Four years later, Bad Taste existed.

Episode 2 of Strange Country goes to New Zealand — to the backyard where Peter Jackson invented himself as a filmmaker, and to the question that's been nagging at the edges of this show since Episode 1. Everyone assumes Jackson invented New Zealand horror. They're wrong. And that's exactly where things get interesting.

We cover Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), the strange political accident that accidentally funded New Zealand's film industry, and the forty-year structural silence that kept Māori filmmakers away from cameras — and what that absence means for everything that came after.

Strange Country is a podcast about Australian and New Zealand horror cinema — where it came from, what it's afraid of, and what it says about two countries that don't always say it straight.

Films covered: Bad Taste (1987), Braindead (1992), Sleeping Dogs (1977), Ngāti (1987)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at www.strangecountry.com.au

]]> Peter Jackson, Bad Taste, Braindead, New Zealand horror, Pukerua Bay, Ozploitation, NZ film history, Robert Muldoon, Maori cinema, Barry Barclay, Ngāti, horror podcast No Issac Haynes Strange Country — Episode 1: The Outback As Monster 1 1 Strange Country — Episode 1: The Outback As Monster full 6fcd992a-9d4f-47ec-aabb-8f5a45f97ea4 https://strangecountry.com.au/episode-1 Seventy percent of Australia is essentially uninhabitable. Not difficult. Not challenging. Uninhabitable.

In the first episode of Strange Country, we look at the films that built Australian horror's most enduring obsession: the landscape as antagonist. Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), and Razorback (1984) are three very different films made across three decades — but they're all circling the same buried question. What does it mean to make a country out of land you took? And what happens when the land starts to answer back?

Films covered: Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), Razorback (1984)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> Seventy percent of Australia is essentially uninhabitable. Not difficult. Not challenging. Uninhabitable.

In the first episode of Strange Country, we look at the films that built Australian horror's most enduring obsession: the landscape as antagonist. Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), and Razorback (1984) are three very different films made across three decades — but they're all circling the same buried question. What does it mean to make a country out of land you took? And what happens when the land starts to answer back?

Films covered: Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), Razorback (1984)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 22:22:19 +1000 Mat Dalby Mat Dalby 1402 Seventy percent of Australia is essentially uninhabitable. Not difficult. Not challenging. Uninhabitable.

In the first episode of Strange Country, we look at the films that built Australian horror's most enduring obsession: the landscape as antagonist. Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), and Razorback (1984) are three very different films made across three decades — but they're all circling the same buried question. What does it mean to make a country out of land you took? And what happens when the land starts to answer back?

Films covered: Long Weekend (1978), Wolf Creek (2005), Razorback (1984)

All films in this episode are in the Vault at strangecountry.com.au

]]> Long Weekend, Wolf Creek, Razorback, Australian horror, Ozploitation, outback horror, Greg McLean, Colin Eggleston, Richard Franklin, ANZ horror, horror podcast No Issac Haynes