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Vice Blog

THEY'RE BACK - CANE TOADS: THE CONQUEST IS COMING SOON

Over twenty years ago an Australian director called Mark Lewis made a film about cane toads. Yes, those ugly creatures that look like a sun-leathered Meatloaf suffering from a bad case of the alcoholic-bloats that every Australian has a green light to kill by whatever sadistic means possible.

Titled Cane Toads: Un Unnatural History, it's far from your average nature documentary, owing way more to Errol Morris than Discovery Channel. When we got sent a DVD copy a few years ago at VICE we were initially dubious that cane toads could hold 45 minutes of our attention and thought the film would be little more than a free history lesson and dead-boring Attenborough-style account of one of the dumbest decision ever made in our country (wrong!) But while that film is pretty close to perfect, so much has happened in cane toad land since the 80s that Mark felt compelled to make a sequel. This one is called Canetoads: The Conquest and it opens nationally in cinemas on June 2nd. And it's shot in 3D, meaning that the slimy little fuckers will be jumping right down your gob.

While cane toads are the stars of the new doco, it's also filled with a range of really odd characters from opposing toad camps, like the haters who plastic bag and freeze them alive to our new favourite artist Kevin Ladynski who makes cane toad taxidermy dioramas like the wrestling one below. There's also a great psychedelic scene shot from the point of view of a dog tripping after licking the skin of a cane toad. Don't bother testing that one out: we already asked Mark and he said he's tried it and a cane toad high is shit.

Canetoads: The Conquest opens nationally in cinemas on June 2nd. HANNAH BROOKS