Swinging Safari, written and directed by Stephan Elliott - 8.5 out of 10

Swinging Safari, written and directed by Stephan Elliott
8.5 out of 10


With one of the best actors in the world, Guy Pearce, leading the cast, Swinging Safari can't be anything but notable, at least.
As Variety puts it, this is 'a cheerfully vulgar, consistently amusing and sometimes hilarious parody'

Some segments are painful though, albeit the atrocious decision to put down a poor, handicapped dog for example has two sides to it, the terrible is combined with the dark humor.
When a poor,  supposedly from the Galápagos Islands turtle is tortured by two teenagers, we see the evil, but it is wrapped in a satirical, light perspective.

One of the teenage girls, Bec Marsh is so active sexually, that a line of expecting partners awaits outside her door, her father, Bob Marsh catching her during felatio and becoming explosive when he sees the two dozen or so boys ready for intimacy.
This is outrageous on some levels, but in the context of this provocative motion picture, it raises questions but also brings laughs.

There are three families that enjoy each other's company, up to the point where they reach a nadir, during the Swinging Safari game.
The already iconic Guy Pearce plays Keith Hall and Kylie Minogue is Kaye Hall, his wife.

Together with Bob and Gale Marsh, they are invited to the mansion of the most prosperous family in the neighborhood, that of Jo and Rick Jones, where the host proposes the Swinging Safari game, in which all me place their keys in a bowl and then women take out one and the owner of the key becomes her partner...sexual partner.
We have seen this before, in the fantastic The Ice Storm, with Joan Allen, Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.

Alas, the children see some of the debauchery that takes place, up to the moment where Bob Marsh is overcome with the guilt, shame, disgust of having coitus with another woman, while his spouse is engaged in sexual intercourse, in the same space.
When the adults allow the children to play, some of the games verge on the murderous, as Jeff Marsh is filming, another boy is supposed to act as if he is destroyed by fire.

Only he nearly is!

Indeed, the teenagers and their even younger siblings engage in a quite upsetting circle of putting on stage acts where violence is extreme, even if the bodies crushed, heads smashed are just melons and other props.
Some other moments of glee and horror are provided by the beached whale, which is decomposing and creates more than a nuisance, up to the point where it is blown up, with the result that a cascade of parts, blood, fat and all sorts of exploded matter flies on people, cars, destroying at least one boat, part of a mansion.

In a bizarre, outrageous twist,the parents of Keira Hall and Jeff Marsh insist that they go to the disco together and then, absurdly and perhaps revoltingly, they start their 'adult life together'.

It was the excessive, crazy 70s.