Experiencing Interruptions?

Family Slaughter

Cocooned in the leafy lyricism of a sedated suburbia resides
Dr Ray Rousseau noted psychoanalyst, and his family –
wife Jean, teenage daughter Tuesday and oldest son Al.
Plagued by a cash and career crisis, the Doc is on a
downward slide as militaristic son Junior arrives home to whip
the Rousseau family into shape. Over the weekend,
as the Doc struggles with a medical conference deadline,
family tensions and sexual assault allegations morph
terrifyingly into a deadly confrontation with his deepest,
darkest obsessions.

Dr Rousseau’s case study nemesis, German judge
Daniel Paul Schreber, a patient incarcerated in
Sonnenstein Asylum in 1898, is homing-in from
another century. Schreber is the vengeful patient that
won’t be ignored. “All miracled-up” - extended by radio,
telephone, television, book, newspaper and computer -
Schreber invades the Rousseau home and the Doctor’s mind.

As this doctor/patient confrontation intensifies, fracture lines
within the Rousseau family are pushed to breaking point.

  • Hardie Tucker
    Director
  • Hardie Tucker
    Writer
  • Tim Pigott
    Writer
  • John Laidler
    Writer
  • Hardie Tucker
    Producer
  • John Laidler
    Producer
  • Tim Pigott
    Producer
  • Bernhard Huber
    Key Cast
    "Daniel Paul Screber"
  • Matt Holden
    Key Cast
    "Dr Ray Rousseau"
  • Erica Jobling
    Key Cast
    "Jean Rousseau"
  • Edwin Laidler
    Key Cast
    "Junior Rousseau"
  • Tim Pigott
    Key Cast
    "Al Rousseau; Smoking Detective"
  • Nicola Huber-Smith
    Key Cast
    "Tuesday Rousseau"
  • John Laidler
    Key Cast
    "Commentator; Dr Frank; Sigmund Freud; Dumb Cop; Dirty Guitar Player"
  • Salif Hardie
    Key Cast
    "Rico Marinetti"
  • Louise Tucker
    Key Cast
    "Sally Molloy; Bettina Holdforth"
  • Craig Tudman
    Key Cast
    "Coop the Lawyer"
  • Chris Bright
    Key Cast
    "Michael Ridgely; Real Estate Agent"
  • Arthur Lee
    Key Cast
    "Wilbur Wired"
  • Wolfgang Spranz
    Key Cast
    "Dr Flechsig"
  • Hardie Tucker
    Key Cast
    "Smoking Soldier"
  • John Bennett
    Key Cast
    "TV Truck Guy"
  • Tim Pigott
    Story Consultant
  • Tim Pigott
    Original Comic Book
  • Nigel Gurney
    Original Comic Book
  • Peter Pound
    Original Comic Book
  • Mark Mort
    Original Comic Book
  • Hardie Tucker
    Motion Design
  • John Laidler
    Original Music
  • John Laidler
    Sound Recording and Sound Design
  • Hardie Tucker
    Sound Recording and Sound Design
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Genres:
    horror
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 37 minutes 28 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2019
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Hardie Tucker

Hardie Tucker is an Australian media developer, writer and media academic. Hardie wrote two screenplays with Tim Pigott in the late 80s: “Vertigo City”, an early adaptation of JG Ballard’s “Highrise”, that received acclaim from the author, and low budget horror script “Family Slaughter”. A black and white comic of Family Slaughter followed, drawn by Nigel Gurney and Peter Pound. From 2012 to 2019 Hardie directed and visually designed the motion comic remediation of the Family Slaughter comic.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This motion comic is the culmination of a thirty-year film project that began in 1988 in Sydney Australia when Tim Pigott and I wrote the screenplay Family Slaughter. We wanted to create a low budget horror film with a ghostly revenge story set in a wealthy Sydney suburb. The story of a psychiatrist dueling with a famous patient from the 19th century – Daniel Paul Schreber - as his professional and family life crumbled amidst themes ofmurder-suicide and workplace sexual harassment.

After hitting a brick-wall with local producers who didn’t appreciate the styles of George Romero and David Cronenberg, we decided to create a comic tie-in, virtually unknown at the time. Tim Pigott had previous success with a comic in attracting Executive Producer Ed Pressman to his other movie, Cargo Zombies. In 1989 Tim designed a 56 page black and white comic Family Slaughter with illustrators Nigel Gurney and Peter Pound. As Tim observed, doing a comic was like directing your own little movie in black ink.

Overcoming budget and page restrictions, Family Slaughter is a great comic bursting with panel ideas and infused with a grim but manic expression of violence, horror and comedy. Despite representation in Los Angeles, no film deal was clinched. The project lay dormant until 2012 when I began to develop the idea of colorizing and motionizing the comic and synching with voice acting, music and sound effects to produce a motion graphics feature. Later I realized this is called a motion comic.

Schreber’s extraordinary visions, as documented in his book, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, are depicted as terrifying phantasms: persecuted by voices; his face crawling with little men; his incarnation as Genghis Khan; interleaved in the pages of his own book; springing from the tv; a fierce courtroom judge. In the demise of Dr Rousseau we see the horror of being dragged to hell by obsession and professional arrogance, with the Rousseau family members, also isolated in their obsessions, becoming collateral damage in a murder suicide rampage. Schreber is the ringmaster up to the final, blood-splattered laugh.