Humor in the deep south, on the world map, can be unfathomable. Australian comedies can take things too far, literally and cinematically. For a sample, Stephan Elliott’s Welcome to Woop Woop (1997) will do.
Based off American author Douglas Kennedy’s novel The Dead Heart, this comedic adventure follows Teddy (Johnathon Schaech), an animal smuggler who finds himself on the run after a deal goes wrong in New York. Next, he is seen driving through an Australian desert where he picks up a young woman Angie (Susie Porter). Banging her leads him to visit her community in the remote desert village of Woop Woop. Now he needs to figure out how the hell to get out of there.
Welcome to Woop Woop is a character-driven comedy with all kinds of creatures to amuse and appall the viewers. The opening scene with Teddy in New York serves as kind of a play on the viewer’s mind – you think Teddy is a laughable thing; wait till you see who he’s gonna be up against.
For saving his life, Teddy also needs to marry Angie or else her father Daddy-O (Rod Taylor), leader of the community, is gonna feed him to the pigs; but he finds himself compatible with another woman who is likely the only sane human in the entire community. Thus Welcome to Woop Woop has its romantic moments and a little romance subplot.
For American audiences, a good deal of the humor could come from the accented Australian English and the rustic mannerisms of the Woop Woop tribe. The characters amount to the hillbillies of some imaginary boondocks in rural America. These characters make you laugh and at times pity them, yet also exhibiting their rough human side and tragic history of inbreeding under harsh circumstances. There is a story to their madness that makes sense.
