This motion picture has a steady, haunting pace backed up with great acting (one of Chamberlain's best performances) and a story that is revealed to us over time.
Beyond that, the music fully establishes the mood and assists in maintaining an uneasy, cautious and somber tone.
Weir's story is enhanced by using aboriginals, their stories and their tensions with the dominant white population to deliver a fantasy tale that is ominous.
Although they are unrelated in story as well as genre, this maintained the same feeling within me as Ursula Le Guin's "Lathe of Heaven" (1980).
"The Last Wave" is a dramatic thriller with some shocking moments. Remember, "hacking and slicing" doesn't make a film a horror movie, it's the psychological element of fear and trepidation that rests within us all.

With its companion piece MASTERS OF HORROR, NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES can only be seen as the absolute nadir of the genre that began so auspiciously with THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS.
Of course, part of the problem is that it does nothing to be of any interest to a comparatively adult audience, instead aiming at TEN-YEAR-OLDS, who are only able to count body-bags, and scarcely that. And so grossness is king, and King is grossness.
Stephen King is simply illiterate  in general he has the aptitude for storytelling of Bart Simpson. Since he cannot read his sole inspiration is the movies.
True, the cinema is not such a bad place to start, since it has generally escaped the onslaught of "Realism". But these films are only the rumor, not the thing, and if you want to WRITE, you have to dig deeper.
Of course, only PICKMAN had monsters as close acquaintances. But even so, it should be clear to any undergraduate that vampires are not Dracula and Lugosi.
At least AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR is a clear indication of what is wrong. One can almost imagine this pathetic dolt sitting as his desk trying to come up with something SCARY.
Not, mind you, trying to describe accurately the horror of the system of which he is an integral part, making the stupid stupider, but trying to come up with a scary story for his little nephew. Suppose, you were paralyzed, and people thought you were dead and started to cut you open like they do at those autopsy things! Wouldn't that be gross? And that, boys and girls, is the story.
What about characterization? Oh yes, he's one of these suits, who never really appreciated life, you know, and now it's too late, right? And he's shouting  well, they can't actually hear him, you know  he's saying that he's going to sue the hospital, but he's not such a big shot anymore, you see, lying there (or is it laying, I can never remember) and all. And he's thinking: Oh no please, please don't cut me and this is terrible, lying (or laying) like that  now, wouldn't that be a great story? You know I read somewhere that a snake bite can do that, I think it was that great medical authority Agatha Christie. What was the name of that snake again, oh yeah, a BOOMSLANG  has quite a ring to it, doesn't it.
Let's make it a PERUVIAN BOOMSLANG! Sure, Steve, that's great  except that BOOMSLANG is Afrikaans, you moron! But how can you really tell that the target audience is children, and not simply mental defects? It's easy: There's no sex.
Well, there is, but it's the kind glimpsed through a crack in the door to our parent's bedroom. Modern filmmakers are really big on the erotic aspects of the genre, the monster, the female victim, the chase.
But unlike UNIVERSAL and LEWTON they have no idea what's going on. All that's really left is the giggling outside the SM club and the Fascist credo that people with sexual preferences are intrinsically evil.
In spite of a certain discrepancy in size, King Kong knew exactly what to do with Fay Wray. Freddy Krueger can only kill her.
And since there's no real titillation in that, he has to torture her first  not in any way that might excite her, you understand, since that would upset our puritan sentiments. And so, horror and romanticism become simply unpleasantness and the grooming of psychopaths.
Our hero, you see, is a rubber fetishist, and can only get a boner if someone touches him you know down there with you know  rubber gloves (giggle). And that's what they use in autopsies, and that's how they discover that he is, in fact, you know.
Obviously, this is the author at the height of his inspirational powers. Too bad, they cut it out, since it might have upset the FIVE-YEAR-OLDS watching the show!