For decades, Australians have delighted in warning wide‑eyed tourists about the deadly “drop bear”, a ferocious koala‑like predator said to plunge from gum‑trees onto unsuspecting visitors.
The tongue‑in‑cheek hoax has become one of the nation’s most enduring in‑jokes, fueled by travel blogs, viral videos and tourism campaigns that play along with the gag.
Now the myth gets its own creature feature. Writer‑director John deCaux has completed post‑production on DROPBEAR, transforming the prank known around the world into a full‑blown survival horror‑comedy.
A group of unsuspecting US tourists signs up for a low-budget Aussie outback tour run by a pair of incompetent grifters. But when their fake “dropbear attack” stunt goes horribly wrong, they stumble into the hunting grounds of a real, flesh-hungry koala king and his rabid army of chlamydia-rage-fueled dropbears. What starts as a ridiculous scam turns into a blood-drenched battle for survival against tree-dwelling, eucalyptus-addicted nightmare creatures.
The finished film was delivered this week to Los Angeles‑based ITN Studios, paving the way for worldwide release later this year.
John deCaux, writer‑director: “Every Aussie has, at some point, enjoyed telling a tourist that to survive, they’ll have to smear Vegemite behind their ears so the ‘drop bears’ won’t smell them. Making a film that turns that joke on its head and then rips it to pieces was irresistible.”
By combining Equip‑it Gear, Six Foot Four Productions, Star Avenue Studios, Pulsar Post, and Australis FX into a single, tightly‑knit production pipeline, deCaux eliminated overheads, availability issues, and price mark‑ups, delivering a picture‑locked, VFX‑finished feature in just four months from start to finish.
Those savings flowed directly into the film’s creative spend:
- Every production dollar stayed local, fueling more than thirty South‑Australian jobs and a raft of first‑time feature credits.
- A seamless gear‑to‑post workflow shaved weeks off the schedule, equipment rolled into the studio floor, and footage flowed straight upstairs to the edit suite for review.
- VFX built in‑house (365 shots) established an artist pool now servicing additional U.S. features and local productions, expanding Adelaide’s post‑production capacity.
Industry commentators compare the model to Peter Jackson’s Wellington empire: Jackson built Wingnut Films, Weta Workshop, Weta FX and Park Road Post, so his movies never had to leave New Zealand. deCaux is proving the same can be done for genre cinema here in South Australia, far from the east‑coast hubs.
Fast‑tracking the next wave of filmmakers
The streamlined model paired seasoned heads of department with first‑timers, turning the set into a working film school:
Jackson Johns, Associate Producer:
“Usually, you’d cut your teeth on shorts for years before a studio feature is even on the horizon. DROPBEAR gave me my first U.S. producing credit straight out of uni, and many of us have already moved onto other paid projects.”
A City of Port Adelaide Enfield Arts & Culture Grant covered a significant share of the film’s VFX budget, enabling Australis FX to bring on local artists who completed over 365 shots. That same team is now is about to start work another U.S. features.
DROPBEAR is Film One in a three‑picture deal between Six Foot Four Productions and ITN Studios. A script for the follow-up to Dropbear is in early development, with principal photography expected to begin later this year, again utilising the pipeline.
Bloody Flicks 