Main Cast: David Field, Mike Bishop, Chris de Rose, Nick Cave, Vince Gil
Release Year: 1998
Country: AU
Run Time: 93 minutes
Plot
Ghosts...of the Civil Dead is an Australian prison picture, ironically coproduced by a company calling itself "Correctional Services". The prison in question is a cruelly repressive institution, with a set of rules bordering on the Draconian. The inmates finally rebel in violent fashion against the regimented sadism of their captors. With its limited setting and its small cast, Ghosts...of the Civil Dead should have been easier to follow. The unnecessarily cluttered screenplay was written by the film's director, John Hillcoat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bogdan Koca - Waychek; Kevin Mackey - Glover; Ian Mortimer - Jack; John Flaus - Armstrong; Dave Mason - Lilly; Mick Harvey; Blixa Bargeld
Credit
John Hillcoat - Director, Stewart Young - Editor, Nick Cave - Musical Direction/Supervision, MacGillicuddy - Makeup, Christopher Kennedy - Production Designer, Paul Goldman - Cinematographer, Denise Patience - Production Manager, Evan English - Producer, Chris Kennedy - Producer, Shane Aumont - Set Designer, MacGregor Knox - Set Designer, Bronwyn Murphy - Sound/Sound Designer, Bill Stacey - Stunts, Nick Cave - Screenwriter, Gene Conkie - Screenwriter, Evan English - Screenwriter, John Hillcoat - Screenwriter, Hugo Race - Screenwriter, Nick Cave - Featured Music, Mick Harvey - Featured Music, Blixa Bargeld - Featured Music
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is a 1988 Australian movie directed by John Hillcoat. The script was written by Hillcoat, producer Evan English, Gene Conkie, and musicians Nick Cave and Hugo Race. It is in part based on the true story of Jack Henry Abbott.
Ghosts... is set in Central Industrial Prison, a privately run maximum securityprison in the middle of the desert. An outbreak of violence within the prison has resulted in a total lockdown. A committee is appointed by the prison's governors to investigate the cause of the outbreak, but their findings are in stark contrast to the facts behind the riot. As the viewers see, both the prisoners and the guards are slowly and deliberately brutalised, manipulated and provoked into the forthcoming eruption of violence, to justify the construction of a new and more "secure" facility.
In Roman law, a person convicted of a crime where the punishment included loss of their legal rights as a person was civiliter mortuus, a person without civil rights, a civil dead.
