The Cars That Ate Paris

Taking his cue from the novels of JG Ballard, Weir (his first feature) chronicles a mutated Australian township which survives by cannibalising the vehicles of unwary travellers and leaving the occupants either dead or 'vegies' for medical experimentation; consequently the town's currency consists of tyres, radios and other highway flotsam. The tone is beautifully sustained throughout, hovering just on the right side of conviction, with superbly understated comic performances from Camilleri and Meillon (the latter as a cosmically impotent mayor). Several genres are deftly skirted, including the increasingly familiar sub-horror theme of an isolated psychopathic community, but the plot never gets bogged down in formula.