Snapshot (1978)

The remains of a body are removed from a fire at a photographer’s studio.

In flashback, successful model Madeline (Chantal Contouri) introduces her friend Angela (Sigrid Thornton) to leading advertising photographer Linsey (Hugh Keays-Byrne).

Recently fired from her job at a Melbourne hairdressing salon, naive and sheltered Angela is photographed topless by Linsey for a Bermuda Cool cologne campaign.

Angela is excited by her change of fortune as she is taken away from her dull life as a hairdresser and introduced to the glamorous world of modelling.

Thrown out of home by her puritanical mother (Julia Blake), Angela moves into Linsey’s headquarters, where work proves to be scarce.

Angela’s ex-boyfriend, Daryl (Vincent Gil), is following her in his Mr Whippy ice-cream van, and Madeleine’s much older husband, Elmer (Robert Bruning), is making lecherous advances.

Someone is also stalking Angela – her clothes are slashed and a pig’s head is placed in her bed.

Angela asks Elmer for help and flees to the apparent safety of a photographer’s studio where she is confronted by an assailant. In the ensuing struggle, the studio is set alight.

Barely known in Australia outside ‘B’ movie buffs, Snapshot passed quickly through local cinemas in 1979 but still managed to notch up significant overseas sales. The film was released in America under the title, One More Minute and a streamlined 92-minute cut was also prepared for American audiences under the title The Day after Halloween (to cash in on a certain holiday-themed horror hit from 1978).

Madeline
Chantal Contouri
Angela Bailey
Sigrid Thornton
Linsey
Hugh Keays-Byrne
Elmer
Robert Bruning
Daryl
Vincent Gil
Lily
Denise Drysdale
Mrs Bailey, Angela’s mother
Julia Blake
Mr Pluckett
Jon Sidney
Becky
Jacqui Gordon
Roger
Peter Stratford
Paula
Christine Amor
Wendy
Lulu Pinkus
Peter
Stewart Faichney
Captain Rock
Bob Brown

Director
Simon Wincer