Welcome to Woop Woop (Elliott 1997) was first screened at the Cannes film festival in 1997 and later released in Australia in 1998. Directed by Stephan Elliott, of the hugely successful Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, (Elliott, 1994) Welcome to Woop Woop derived from the novel, The Dead Heart, by Douglas Kennedy, and tells the story of American con man Teddy, and his encounter with a group of isolated, and ultimately, very strange Australians. Played by US actor Jonathon Schaech, Teddy finds himself fleeing to the Australian outback after his girlfriend (Rachel Griffiths) decides to shoot the hoons who are chasing Teddy. On the road through the Northern Territory, Teddy meets Angie, a sex-crazed hitchhiker played by Susie Porter, and his future begins to resemble every mans fantasy. 

But soon the story of every man’s fantasy becomes the story of every mans nightmare after Angie drugs Teddy and kidnaps him. Waking up in a stable, consequently very drowsy and covered in whipped cream, Teddy finds he has been brought to the isolated and somewhat unique dwelling of Woop Woop, inhabited by so-called freaks and weird-os, and ruled by the irrepressible Daddy-O (Rod Taylor). With their strange behaviour and even stranger traditions (not to mention compulsory pineapple chunks and xxx Beer) it is no surprise that any normal person should express the need to escape to civilisation. The ill-fated end to Paul Mercurio’s character portrays just how the illegal act of escape is dealt with in Woop Woop, and serves as a reminder to how his fantasy future has suddenly turned into a theatrical nightmare. 

Welcome to Woop Woop has actually has a very difficult underlying message to determine: in it’s simplest terms the film tells the story of one man’s fight to preserve his heritage, and a piece of land he has claimed as his own after a fight with the Government. The humour arises through the townsfolk’s actions and behaviour and Teddy’s obvious outsider status. The situation for Teddy is worsened by the fact that he is an American, and has no idea about Australians living in the outback, let alone the freakish occupants of Woop Woop. Personally, I perceive this film not to be a statement that Australians are strange creatures as a whole, but rather a statement about a specific, isolated group who behave in such a manner because they have no outside judgement to base their lives upon, and their only leader is a tyrannical character who serves to be the only role model to the residents of Woop Woop.  

On the other hand, Welcome to Woop Woop has displayed a darker message centred on outback Australians. The people of Woop Woop live with many of the values still held in isolated communities, such as sexism, community loyalty and an obvious hierarchy of power. But even though the characters and community as a whole may hold these realistic values, the characters themselves are highly exaggerated and difficult for the audience to relate to.  Whatever the audience understands the message to be, Elliott has chosen to approach these issues and values with his definitive and strange sense of humour. However, only a specific few may understand its attempts at satire.