Underplayed Gems

Pallet on the Floor (1986)

Pallet on the Floor poster
Directed by
Lynton Butler
Genre
comedy horror
Country
New Zealand
Runtime
1h 28m
Rated
R
Rating
6.5 of 10 from 2 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

In a bleak small New Zealand town in the 1960s, a worker at a local abattoir gets involved with an eccentric British newcomer. The story shows the town's rough edges including racism and class divisions.

quirkydarkly comicbleakearthysomberoffbeatslow-burnsmall-town

What happens

Pallet on the Floor is a 1986 New Zealand made comedy-drama film, based on the final novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Shot in 1983 at Pātea, partly in a closed-down abattoir, the film was given limited release in New Zealand three years later. The main role of abattoir worker Sam Jamieson is played by veteran actor Peter McCauley. Pallet on the Floor is the only feature film directed by Lynton Butler, who earlier made One of those Blighters, a television production which fictionalised Morrieson's life. Actor and musician Bruno Lawrence contributed to the jazz score, and has a small cameo role playing Morrieson as a bass player at a wedding. The focus of the plot was shifted to the character of the British remittance man in the hope that Peter O’Toole would take the role. This did not occur. While billed as comedy, the film depicts 1960s racism and class divisions, and maintains Morrieson's trademark preoccupations .... of sex, death, mateship, voyeurism, violence, booze and mayhem in bleak small town New Zealand. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.