I can understand how non-Australians might not get "Welcome to Woop Woop". As an Aussie, I don't get it either.

Australian cinema has produced some off-the-wall comedies over the years, but this one is in a league of its own.

Teddy (Johnathon Schaech),an American rare bird smuggler on the run ends up in the Australian outback. He meets Angie (Susie Porter),a sexually veracious girl who drugs him and takes him to her community in the ex-asbestos mining town of Woop Woop run by her father Daddy-O (Rod Taylor).

Teddy wakes up to find he is married to Angie. He gets caught up in the weird lifestyle of the isolated community whose only source of entertainment and connection to culture is old videos of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals - a little like "Galaxy Quest" where the alien Thermians only understand human behaviour through the signals they have received of old television shows.

Along with the most strident of Australian accents, the changes of mood in the film are bewildering - singing, dancing and fornicating one minute and shooting dogs the next. This slice of Australiana makes the characters in "Wake in Fright" seem like Oxford dons.

I only saw "Woop Woop" recently (2015) when it appeared on "World Movies" about the same time as a documentary called "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" Apparently Quentin Tarantino championed the documentary and I must admit it was more entertaining than most of the films it featured, including "Welcome to Woop Woop"

The cast gave it everything they had, and seemed to be in on the joke. Rod Taylor has one great scene where he does an electric tap dance to "Shall We Dance" on the bar with leads on his shoes connected to a battery. But as far as I'm concerned these were the only sparks generated in the film.

Stephen Elliott had made "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" the year before. "Priscilla" was outrageous with souvenirs of ABBA, ping-pong balls etc. - but it was funny. "Welcome to Woop Woop" is outrageous and tedious.

Would I recommend the film? Well that all depends on what you like. Some people relish a good bad movie. By bad, I don't mean poor editing or shoddy sound, far from it, "Woop Woop" is polished as far as production values are concerned - I mean bad in concept. It has a certain cult following, but that's one cult I managed to escape.

Director Stephan Elliott had a big hit with "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" back in 1994. This is his 1997 followup which was a huge bomb. I like it, but it's easy to see why it failed.

A con man (Jonathan Schaech) travels to Australia to kidnap some rare exotic birds (don't ask). He is unexpectedly sexually attacked by a VERY aggressive young woman, and she knocks him out, drugs him and takes him to her hometown, Woop Woop, and proclaims he's her husband. Woop Woop is in the middle of nowhere, has a population of 50 and is definetely a strange place--Rodgers + Hammerstein songs are blasting from speakers all day (!!!),they kill kangaroos and make them into dog food and no one is ever allowed to leave the town. Schaech wants out...but can he make it?

To say this movie is bizarre is an understatement--it's VERY weird! Everyone overacts to the extreme (especially Schaech) and wear very weird, colorful costumes (I mean that in a good way). The script goes rambling all over the place, most lines make no sense and then there's the non-stop R&H songs! Still, it is very funny (if a little sick at times) and you can't take your eyes away from it.

The acting is, as I said, over the top but great. Schaech gets right in the mood of things from the beginning--he's very lighthearted, grinning continuously and gives his all to his lines. He's also handsome and hunky and has a few nude scenes. Also Rod Taylor chews the scenery again, and again, and again, and AGAIN as Daddy-O--the leader of the town.

It does lag a little at the end and it's definetely not for all tastes but totally off-beat and fun--particularly the opening in NYC and the last scene with...well, you'll know! A must-see for R&H fans.

Welcome to Woop Woop is like "Mad Max: Beyond Thuderdome" meets "After Hours". Rod, a con man from New York, high tails it to the Outback to dodge his captors, only to land himself in a new world of trouble. With one stop at a gas station, he picks up a hitchiker who, unbeknownst to him, becomes his new wife. And this lands him a one way ticket to the most backwards autocratic communal called Woop Woop, which was unofficially incorporated by the survivors of a an asbestos mill that fell and the town, ignored by it's corporate malfeasors.

Rod is in a giant, hot hell hole filled with the weirdest residents who have called it home their entire lives. And now, he's got to figure out a way to get past "Daddy," the self-appointed head of Woop Woop, and get beyond the walls alive. Woop Woop don't take kindly to deserters.

You'll notice similarities to Bartertown--Rod, like Max, is inadvertently thrust into a very aggressive communal type of isolated existence. Daddy-O even resembles Aunty Entity (and the movie even contains a Mad-Max like chase scene). Likewise, the movie draws similarities to Scorcese's "After Hours" given the kind of weirdo's Rod meets up with, baffled by their audacity and just how absolutely twisted they are. More importantly, in that these are crazy people that he can never seem to get away from.

The movie is pretty funny because you're forced to witness something of an isolated civilization built on seemingly modern technology, but used in a different fashion (you'll see what I mean when you watch it) and the story contains some political undertones, as well. It's well worth a try if you don't mind indy movies from the land down under. Bottoms up!