Virtually plot less, somewhat documentary-style film about life inside a high-tech maximum security prison in Australia. Easily the scariest film I've ever seen about prison life, certainly the most claustrophobic, thanks in part to Nick Cave's chilling, drone-like score, which is a piece of work all by itself.It's funny - most of the prison life you see portrayed in film just doesn't seem "real" (never having been in prison myself I cannot say for sure, of course). But it just never seems real. In watching "Ghosts...of the Civil Dead" I was reminded of Roger Ebert's review of the original "Jaws". When talking about the shark Ebert said "...the illusion is complete. It just plain feels like a real shark." That's what I can say about this film. I don't know how much of it is real (which of the characters was played by an actual con, or whatever) but it just plain feels like real prison life. And this is the only film I've ever seen that I can say that about, which is also the highest praise that I can give it.This probably one of the most menacing films I've ever seen. Although there is not a lot of violence shown, the odor of violence all but oozes from the screen. Every word and every frame drips with the possibility of violence and brutality.The film basically shows the events leading up a "lockdown" in this prison. There aren't any main characters (the prison is the main character, as Cave points out in an interview on the DVD) although there are a few little subplots here and there. Mostly the film just lurches at you in heavy gasps and you sit and watch in horror. I know I did.I recently watched a documentary about life inside a maximum security prison in Utah, and it looked stunningly like what is shown in this film.Highly recommended but be warned, this is a heavy film.

And not only that this movie is based on a true story as well.The Movie uses a prison near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory as its location but the story itself is sourced from the US.The script is loosely based on events witnessed by whistleblower and former U.S. Prison Guard, David Hale.The Score which was composed by "Nick Cave & The Bad Seed members", Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey and Nick Cave, is quite haunting and disturbing and sets the right tone for the movie.What makes this movie so disturbingly realistic is the fact that this movie only has 6 Professional performers in it, the rest are played by real ex-cons, guards, cops, etc. The Eric Bana movie Chopper also used real criminals/ex cons in its movie to great effect and Ghosts was the inspiration for Choppers Director to use this technique.Ghosts is one of those rare movies that has never ever gotten the widespread acclaim that it deserves and continues to be a movie that is becoming increasingly hard to get.Hopefully the latest Nick Cave/John Hilcoat project, "the Proposition", will change all of that and we will see it finally start to find the audience it truly deserves.While this movie is very hard to find in video stores (even in Australia) it is most definitely worth trying to track down. And if you collect DVD's it is a must have for your collection and worth getting or importing from EzyDVD or DVDorchard.

I saw this movie years ago when it was shown as part of Channel 4's "Down Under" season. I don't think it has been shown on UK TV since - to be honest I am surprised it was shown even once.A great movie to be sure, brilliantly scripted, and of course Nick Cave's manic performance is truly astonishing. This movie is notoriously hard to get hold of, especially in the UK, however! I have recently purchased a (new) copy of the Collectors Edition DVD from an Australian retailer (EzyDVD). It is all-region PAL format so I can play it no problem on my UK player. Dirt cheap it was as well. There are a whole host of extras too so all-in-all a top DVD.I thought I would pass the information on as I had been trying to buy the film on Ebay for ages but the prices were going too high when there were any copies on there. Then lo and behold the Net came to the rescue. I got it shipped from Oz in just over a week.

Stunning, almost horrific statement of the effect prisons have on the rest of society, Hillcoat has created a no-holds-barred, fabricated `report' on the inner-workings of an imaginary future prison that is worth seeing - if you can stomach it. There's certainly no doubting what writers Nick Cave and Gene Conkie think of prisons as Australian society's most corporal method of punishment and rehabilitation: although the on-screen activity is certainly shocking enough, what is perhaps even more so is what is not shown (perhaps because it didn't get past the censors?). Field's best role ever.