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What is Ozploitation?

Wondering what “Ozploitation” is? Well, you’re probably not alone, but the name for it does reveal it. All the “exploitation” movies tend to just lean into a certain race, gender, geography, or minority and make movies about and for this audience.

For Ozploitation, it’s Australia or Aussie which has been turned into “Oz” and combined with “Exploitation”. Essentially, Ozploitation are exploitations movies made in Australia.

However, these movies do also tend to be extremely stereotypical, so they can also come across as grossly offensive. Usually, it depends on who is making and participating in the movie.

Another, more famous, exploitation subgenre is “Blaxploitation” (or “Blackspoitation” as it comes from the words “black” and “exploitation”) which was awesome when focusing on Black Power in an empowering way. Much less so when the stereotypes took over for entertainment value.

From movies featuring the character “Foxy Brown” and “John Shaft” in the 1970s to movies from Spike Lee and John Singleton in the late 1980s and 1990s. One of the most recent is Alice (2022).

Examples of Ozploitation movies

Ozploitation movies also evolved quite a lot. They went from being brutal horror B movies in the 1970s and 1980s to some amazingly popular horror movies in this new century. One of the older and iconic Ozploitation movies that most will know is Mad Max (1979).

Well, all the Mad Max movies are Ozploitation really. Not that they are anywhere near being B-movie productions now. After being low-budget and very brutal (even crude) in style in the 1970s and 1980s, nothing much was made in the 1990s.

Then came the new century and Ozploitation movies are more popular than ever.

A movie like Wolf Creek (2005) wasn’t exactly billed as an Ozploitation movie but does belong in the subgenre. So does The Loved Ones (2009), which is another awesome horror movie. Other examples are Rogue (2007), Daybreakers (2010), Cargo (2017), Killing Ground (2018), Upgrade (2018), and Black Water: Abyss (2020).

Yes, as it turns out, I absolutely love the more recent Ozploitation movies whereas I’m not crazy about the older ones.

What can I say? I just like more focus on characters and plot than crazy B-movie slasher effects and crazy death counts. Oh well, to each their own, right?!