Horror has always held a unique place in Australian cinema, and right now, a fierce new wave of bold, inventive filmmaking is making itself known and earning global recognition. These films are clawing into the spotlight, driven by fearless filmmakers who aren’t afraid to cross lines and shake audiences.

These films were like a good old-fashioned bar fight. They were loud, grubby, and messy. You never knew where the next film would take you, and that was half the thrill. The filmmakers weren’t playing by the rules. Instead, they were ripping them up and setting fire to what was left, and in doing so, they built something lasting, fearless, and unmistakably Australian.

While all that chaos was blowing up, something quieter was creeping in – Australian Gothic. Where Ozploitation hit hard with violence and bravado, Australian Gothic leaned into atmosphere, emotion, and the uneasy feeling that something was always just out of reach. These films didn’t grab you by the throat; they got under your skin. They explored loneliness, grief, identity, and the heavy pull of the past. Jump scares were replaced with images and ideas that refused to leave your mind. In these stories, the Australian landscape wasn’t just a backdrop; it became a living, breathing force – vast, mysterious, and emotionally charged.

Take Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). It feels less like a narrative and more like a dream slipping into a nightmare. Its hazy cinematography and hypnotic pacing wrap you in a thick fog of dread and unanswered questions. Another film that slid into this subgenre was  Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971). Sure, it’s not traditional horror, and Roeg isn’t Australian himself, but the film’s spirit most certainly is. It’s a haunting, oddly beautiful meditation on survival, loneliness, and the heartbreaking distances between cultures. Then, there’s Tony Williams’ Next of Kin (1982), a masterclass in slow-burn gothic horror. It pulls you deeper into its eerie world where memory and reality start to twist together, and never lets you go.

Ozploitation and Australian Gothic carved out two distinct subgenres in the country’s horror history, one loud and brutal, the other slow and deeply unsettling. This new wave we’re seeing today feels like a brutal collision of the two. It’s as if someone took the violence of Ozploitation and the lingering sadness of Gothic horror, threw them in a blender, and let the chaos mix. The result? Something entirely new, yet unmistakably Aussie.

Before we explore this new wave, it’s worth looking back at another big shift: the rise of psychological horror at the dawn of the 21st century. Departing from Ozploitation’s outlandish energy, this era ushered in a quieter, more insidious kind of horror, one that rattled you to the core. These films didn’t rely on spectacle. Instead, they pulled from real life, often inspired by true events or grounded fears, the kind of horror that feels like it could be happening just around the corner. A lot of these films also had a serious obsession, in an almost celebratory way, with deranged male characters. It’s an era of filmmaking that had a huge influence on horror in Australia.

A prime example of this is Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (2005). While it nods to the Ozploitation era in some respects, it leans more heavily into atmospheric dread, drawing its horror from the victims’ helplessness and paranoia as they’re hunted and tortured, rather than relying on gore or jump scares. It also birthed one of the most repulsive villains the genre’s ever seen: Mick Taylor. A true malicious maniac who served as the greatest anti-tourist ambassador for the Australian outback. Then you’ve got Snowtown (2011), Justin Kurzel’s brutal retelling of the notorious Snowtown murders, which was unflinchingly raw in a way that made it hard to sit through, not because of gore, but because it felt like these psychopaths were in our own backyard. A couple of years later, Hounds of Love (2016) pushed even further into discomfort. Ben Young’s film about a young woman’s abduction was so harrowing that watching it felt like being held captive in someone else’s nightmare. In the same year, we also got Wolf Creek’s deranged cousin – Killing Ground, directed by Damien Power. This brutal piece of filmmaking took the classic “camping trip gone wrong” idea and stripped away any comfort. It’s a tense, harsh, and relentless ordeal spearheaded by Aaron Pedersen’s truly psychotic performance. Other notable films from this era that shift away from the trope of the unhinged male lead and instead explore psychological tension in a more nuanced way include Lake Mungo (2008). This is a film that didn’t shout or jump out at you; it crept quietly, sinking into your bones. Joel Anderson used that lo-fi, faux documentary style to build something that felt disturbingly real, like you weren’t watching a movie so much as slipping into someone’s grief. And finally, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), which took the idea of mourning and twisted it into something almost unbearable. It clawed at your nerves with every scene, leaving you with a lingering fear of every shadow in your home, like being a kid again.

So, I think it’s safe to say Australian horror has never stood still. It’s constantly shifting. Chaotic and loud one minute, quiet and haunting the next. Whether it’s drawing on gritty realism, deep emotional trauma, or just good old-fashioned carnage, every era has shaped the genre in its own way. But now, a new wave is rising, one that doesn’t merely pay homage to the past but reinvents it into something fresh, bold, and full of energy. If any film sparked this shift, it was Talk to Me (2022).

With their feature debut, Danny and Michael Philippou delivered a film as sharp as a switchblade. Talk to Me fused primal tension with a razor-edged emotional core, confronting grief, guilt, addiction, mental illness, and the disconnection of a digital generation. Cinematographer Aaron McLisky creates a visually slick world where shadows and silences reveal how even the most domestic spaces can feel haunted. Masterfully crafted, narratively relentless, and anchored by Sophie Wilde’s knockout performance, it didn’t just announce two new horror auteurs; it marked a seismic shift in Australian horror.

Hot on their heels came another dynamic duo: Jack Clark and Jim Weir. Their feral debut, Birdeater (2023), is a film that slithers into your subconscious and sets up camp. While not strictly horror, its hallucinating tone, disturbing intimacy, and undercurrent of violence make it more unsettling than most horror films. Like Wake in Fright reimagined for the Tinder generation, Birdeater dissects masculinity with a scalpel dipped in acid. Chaotic, stylish, and wholly its own, it feels less like a debut and more like a warning shot.

And then there’s Late Night with the Devil (2023), a devilish genre cocktail from Cameron and Colin Cairnes that might just be the most fun you can have while being terrified. Part mockumentary, part Ozploitation fever dream, and laced with a loving nod to ‘70s late-night television, it walks a tightrope between horror and raw satire without ever losing balance. Stylish, smart, and unnervingly original, it’s both a love letter to the past and a manifesto for the future.

These are films that erupt with the kind of energy that leaves a mark. They signal a new wave of Australian horror that’s sharper, bolder, and more daring than ever. Each carves out a voice that demands attention, and with all three making waves internationally, with each one landing on Netflix, it’s clear the world is finally tuning in.

And I don’t think they’ll be tuning out anytime soon, thanks to the Philippou brothers’ terrifying sophomore feature, Bring Her Back. The film has made a serious splash since its release last week, and rightfully so. Following a brother and sister who uncover a sinister ritual at the remote home of their new foster mother, it’s a viciously crafted horror that grabs you by the guts and drags you through a blood-curdling nightmare of grief and trauma, leaving you delightfully disturbed. It’s another emotional and harrowing gut-punch, executed flawlessly across the board. From the standout performances of Sally Hawkins, Sora Wong, Billy Barratt, and Jonah Wren Phillips to Aaron McLisky’s expertly composed cinematography — and everything in between — this is first-rate horror in every sense. A more mature follow-up that makes it clear: these boys mean business. If Talk to Me cracked the door open, Bring Her Back has just blown it off the hinges.

So, is horror on the rise in the land down under?

Well, I think it’s fair to say, it isn’t just rising, it’s baring its teeth, drawing blood, and charging forward with a vengeance. A bold new wave of filmmakers are taking the best of the past, flipping it on its head, and turning it into something loud, proud, and refreshingly new, and I for one am thrilled to be along for the ride.

Long live Aussie horror.