Celebrating 40 years this year is this little known gem of a movie.

Scribed by Everett De Roche, who produced some cracking screenplays for classic ozploitation flicks such as Patrick (which also celebrates 40 years this year), RoadGames, Razorback, and Snapshot. (The latter of which is due for a DVD release in April)

The film centres on a couple who are going on a camping trip for one last attempt to reconnect. As the story unfolds though, the couples marriage problems are the least of their concerns as director Colin Eggleston crafts an intricate tale of ecology.

At first it would appear that we are facing a typical story of a couple forced to unite against some strange, psychopathic local, which has been predominant in recent Australian movies like Wolf Creek or Killing Ground.

Instead we see Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia’s (Briony Behets) blatant neglect and destructive behaviour towards animals and the environment become so paramount that Nature fights back.

Now, we’re not talking about some trumped up science fiction narrative like M.Night Shyalaman’s The Happening, but a well structured slow-burner of a movie that eats away at the core of what is left of the lead characters humanity.

Some may feel that the characters grate too much and admittedly their flaws as people can find it difficult to connect with them, but it only makes their plight when things turn dire all the more pleasurable as you seriously hope that they receive their comeuppance.

They are so caught up in their own lives that they fail to see the bigger picture around them and the tangled web of paranormal and paranoia that surrounds them with every fateful action they take.

The pace may turn you off as well as wishing that Nature acts more swiftly in dispatching the characters, but stick with it as the labyrinth of despair unfolds.

It’s a cracker of a movie which has as much relevance today as it did back in 1978 about the world and humanities destructiveness.