SAVAGERY: the Early Cinema of a Sleaze Genius

Mark Savage is one of my filmmaking idols. It's hard enough to get any film made here in Australia let alone a sleazy exploitation film, and he has managed to stay true to his sick and twisted taste in cinema throughout his career. He never went to film school. Instead, he bought a super8 camera as a kid, and started to make violent little movies around Mount Waverly with his brother, Colin (one of the coolest cunts you'll ever meet).

Over these early years, they made over a hundred short genre films. A small selection of them have been uploaded on to youtube, and any fan of filmmaking should enjoy watching them. You can see how quickly Mark was developing his editing skills, and some of them show a flair for cutting that most modern big-budget action movies lack today. Of course they are senseless action movies made by a bunch of kids, but to see how he nailed cinema violence so young, and how stylised his editing was, is simply amazing (or depressing if you're a filmmaker).

Dirk deBruyn (Melbourne experimental filmmaker) told me a story about how the young Savages turned up to this feminist film event and screened their "Penetrator" film series to a bunch of feminists! Dirk copped a bit of flack from these liberated young women, but he was obligated to screen whatever was submitted at an underground film event (he secretly admired their work).

Check out the rest of this treasure trove of gems: Savage Super8 Sinema

Mark has three features in post at the moment so be sure to support if you're a fan of his work, peeps!