Ghosts… of the Civil Dead

Ghosts... of the Civil Dead
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Hillcoat
Written by	Nick Cave Gene Conkie Evan English John Hillcoat Hugo Race
Produced by	Evan English
Starring	David Field Chris DeRose Nick Cave Dave Mason
Cinematography	Paul Goldman Graham Wood
Edited by	Stewart Young
Music by	Nick Cave Blixa Bargeld Mick Harvey
Production companies	Correctional Services Outlaw Values
Release date	December 1988 (1988-12) (Europe)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	A$1,680,000[1]

Ghosts... of the Civil Dead is a 1988 Australian drama-suspense film directed by John Hillcoat. It was written by Hillcoat, Evan English, Gene Conkie, Nick Cave and Hugo Race. It is partly based on the true story of Jack Henry Abbott.

The story is set in Central Industrial Prison, a privately run maximum security prison in the middle of the Australian 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.

It is revealed that both the prisoners and the guards are slowly and deliberately brutalised, manipulated and provoked into the forthcoming eruption of violence by the government and the private company that runs the prison, in order to justify the construction of a new and more "secure" facility.

The script was based on the book In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott and research done with David Hale, a former prison guard at Marion, Illinois. The film was shot at a disused aircraft factory in Melbourne^[2] in October and November.^[3]

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.

The spoken line "Welcome to Central Industrial. We are the future" has been sampled by Future Sound of London in their song "Central Industrial" on their Accelerator album;^[4] also sampled by Woob in their song "Void, Part One" on the album em:t 0094,^[5] and by Jam and Spoon in their remix of Moby's "Go".^[6]

Sonic Subjunkies samples various parts of the film in their songs "Central Industrial" and "Central Industrial II: The Lockdown".

Therapy? opened the song "Nausea" (the first one on their 1992 album Nurse) with a sample of Nick Cave shouting "Here I am, motherfuckers!" in the film.

• Fuchs, Christian [1996] (2002). Bad Blood. Creation Books

• Official website
• Ghosts... of the Civil Dead at IMDb
• Ghosts... of the Civil Dead at Oz Movies
• Ghosts... of the Civil Dead at AllMovie
• Ghosts… of the Civil Dead at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ghosts... of The Civil Dead at the National Film and Sound Archive