[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/he_died_with_a_felafel_in_his_hand.JPG]]

->''"I've lived in 49 shared households in what seems as many years... I've lived with tent-dwelling bank clerks, albino moon tanners, nitrous suckers, psycho fucking drama queens, ACID EATERS, MUSHROOM FARMERS, FUCKING BROTHEL CRAWLERS, FRIDGE-PISSERS, HARDCORE SEPARATIST LESBIANS, AND OBSCURELY TIGER-SUITED JAPANESE GIRLS! AND NOW THE BEST FRIEND I'VE EVER HAD IN THE FUCKING WORLD WON'T EVEN FUCKING TALK TO ME! I'M IN A PSYCHO FUCKING NIGHTMARE FROM HELL, AND I'M ''FUCKING FED UP WITH IT''!"''
-->-- '''Danny'''

A search for love, meaning and bathroom solitude, with a lot of [[WorldOfChaos random shit]] happening in the meantime.

''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'' (2001) is a flamboyantly pointless housemates-from-hell story, based on a the grunge fiction novel by John Birmingham. Despite mediocre circulation, it has become something of a CultClassic among slackers, unemployed yobbos, leftist university students, and anybody else who's experienced the joys of cramped, noisy shared-house living in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. Memorable mainly for that scene in backyard Brisbane, plus a kick-arse soundtrack full of Australian artists and snappy writing that makes it the most quotable text since Creator/OscarWilde.

Stars Creator/NoahTaylor, Emily Hamilton and, for some reason, Romane Bohringer. And while most of the people described in the page quote show up in the film, ''all'' of them show up in the book.
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!!This movie has examples of:

* AffablyEvil: One of the cops who shake them down in Melbourne.
* AllThereInTheManual: A lot of the film's dialogue and more obscure moments are lifted directly from the book. Reading the book isn't required to understand the film, but it does make a lot of things make a lot more sense, inasmuch as the film can make sense at all.
* ArcWords: Somehow everyone Danny's ever lived with has met his mum. (Presumably this is how they keep finding him).
--> '''Everyone:''' You really should ring your mum. She's worried about you.
** "Black is the ultimate... black eclipses everything".
** Plagues get mentioned a few times.
* AsianAirhead: Satomi, aka. 'Tiger Girl,' although it might just be that her English doesn't extend much further than, 'I move in now, yes?'
* AttentionWhore: Nina the wannabe actress.
* BathSuicide: [[spoiler: Sam tries it, after she and Anya break up and Danny turns her down.]]
* BeigeProse: Danny writes possibly the least arousing porn ever written. For Penthouse.
-->'''Danny:''' Enter me, enter me, she gasped...
* TheBet: Played straight when the guys go ga-ga over Anya.
* BlackComedy: Oh yeah. [[spoiler: The pagans sacrificing Milo]] is played for laughs, as is [[spoiler: the cops threatening Danny and co]]. Very few serious scenes aren't played for black comedy, but two of them (Flip's death and [[spoiler: Sam's suicide attempt]]) are immediately subjected to MoodWhiplash by some very funny lines directly afterwards.
* BookEnds: Flip's corpse shot. [[TheReveal It's a lot more graphic the second time.]] Also:
--> '''Danny:''' Wanna get married?
--> '''Sam:''' Can't. Gotta go out later.
* BrainyBrunette: Sam.
* BrickJoke: Sam mentions to the Brisbane Goons that using a mobile phone can cause brain tumours. As they leave, they discuss getting phone headsets, with one arguing the pros (no brain tumours) and the other the cons (looking like a receptionist). When they return during the neo-pagan incident, they're both wearing headsets.
* CallBack: Danny's story ends with the protagonist waking up in a cold sweat and finding that his hand is missing. In the Melbourne part of the movie, Danny wakes up in a cold sweat, with one hand under the pillow. (He's fine, obviously, this isn't that kind of movie.)
* CampGay: Dirk tries to be this after coming out.
* CatchPhrase: Danny has a habit of headdesking and sighing "Fuck..." whenever someone's at the door.
** Anya, who evidently doesn't have English as a first language, and so she says 'how you say' before trying to get the right word.
* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Yarn]]: Danny's masturbation story. It starts off as an off-the-cuff TallTale and ends up getting printed in Penthouse.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Taylor before his 'epiphany' concerning prostitutes. He plays golf with cane toads, sets the washing-up on fire, calls for backup from neo-Nazis and shoots Danny in the head with a water pistol and declares, 'If this were for real, you'd be dog meat by now.'
* ClusterFBomb: The entire script. TruthInTelevision because it was made in Australia.
* CompositeCharacter: Just about everyone in the film is a blend of certain characters from the book, occasionally with a new name.
* ConspiracyTheorist: Iain the Socialist believes that the government purposely makes milk bottles a few centimetres too short to hold dried fettucine.
* DarkerAndEdgier: All of the Melbourne scenes, in contrast to the Brisbane and Sydney parts. All three parts have their share of black comedy, but the Melbourne scenes have a higher ratio of dark stuff to comedy. Everything in the Brisbane scenes is treated as funny, no matter how dark, and while Sydney has a few serious moments it ends on a very hopeful note, but Melbourne is just straight up depressing, with a (very welcome, but small) side of comedy.
* DeadpanSnarker: Sam, though Danny gets a few moments in too.
* DestructoNookie: Sam and Anya manage to break a lamp.
* DirtyCop: Apparently UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}}'s finest work for the local casino. Almost TruthInTelevision at the time…
-->'''Detective:''' We're the police, sweetheart. Your civil liberties are about to be violated.
* DistractedByTheSexy: The guys' collective IQ drops sharply around Anya. Milo almost becomes TooDumbToLive.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Everyone gets one. Danny likes to sit around and ignore/watch the chaos while playing 'California Dreaming'; Taylor likes to play cane toad golf and pretends to be a veteran of the Vietnam War; Sam frequently comments on how weird the guys are acting but doesn't seem to mind being there, Anya resembles an alien who got dropped onto a weird planet but does her best to adapt; Flip is dumb but sweet and well-intentioned; Milo is cocky and thinks he can achieve anything (while Otis just follows him around)... and that's just the Brisbane housemates.
* EverybodySmokes: Oh boy.
* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: Anya's whole appeal. It also makes her sound more sophisticated when she starts to use sci-fi references as metaphors
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The opening shot is of a stiff, cadaverous arm holding up a felafel.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Twenty-five grand for a Penthouse piece...
* ForegoneConclusion: Flip dies. With a felafel in his hand.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Taylor kneading dough while Anya talks about her and Sam breaking up (again), Nina bitches about people on TV and Uptight talks about how 'fit' the actors are. All at the same time.
* {{Granola G|irl}}uy: Iain, from Melbourne, complete with a rant about how milk bottles are an inch too short to hold dried fettuccine. He's actually a rare example in that not only is he male, he's also younger than 30.
* GutPunch[=/=][[WhamEpisode Wham Scene]]: The movie is very light-hearted, up until [[spoiler: Sam tries to kill herself]]. After that, things go ''very'' dark very quickly, and though the movie ends on a hopeful note, that's really the moment when everything starts going downhill.
* HeadTiltinglyKinky: When Cashmere Sweater Babe and her Flat-Headed Rugby Type hookup, they end up going at it like lamb chops on the front lawn.
-->'''Danny:''' Ooh, ouch.
-->'''Taylor:''' Nasty.
-->'''Danny:''' That's gotta hurt.
-->'''Otis:''' That's a bad game, dude. Brings out the worst in people.
* TheHeart: Danny, given that Taylor, Flip, Sam and Anya follow him from house to house.
* HeroicBSOD: Danny has one after Flip dies.
* HiddenDepths / IDidWhatIHadToDo: One of the cops in Melbourne apparently seems to think that police brutality plays a major part in the upkeep of society, and waxes on about it for a few minutes.
* {{Hipster}}: Iain, with his eating healthy food, rant about the government doing everyone down and talk about communism.
* HoYay: {{Invoked}}. Milo seems a bit ''too'' upset when everyone starts reading homoerotic Subtext into his favourite RatedMForManly movie, ''Film/ReservoirDogs''. Not to mention he seems suspiciously attached to Otis.
-->'''Flip''': What about that bit where they're all pointing their guns at each other?
-->'''Milo''': What about it?
-->'''Flip''': Well, maybe it's not really their guns they're pointing...
* HomageShot: Neo-Nazis are brought in to deal with the rent situation. The youngest of them breaks into ''[[Theatre/{{Cabaret}} Tomorrow Belongs To Me]]'', for [[RuleOfFunny some reason]], and the neo-pagans join in for a nice campfire sing-along. Doubles as a parody, obviously.
** When the neo-Nazis show up, Taylor (wearing camo face paint and armed with an M16 water-pistol) says, "I had to call in the cavalry to neutralise the rent situation. [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnyThing With extreme prejudice.]]" While ''[[Film/ApocalypseNow The Ride Of The Valkyries]]'' swells.
** There is no way Danny looks that much like Music/NickCave by accident.
* HumanSacrifice: The pagans and Anya try to sacrifice Milo by tying him to a clothesline, which they then set on fire. Weirdly (or possibly just for more comedic purposes), they try to burn him alive instead of doing what Anya told Danny about earlier- i.e., bleeding him to death and pouring the blood on the ground so the earth could bear fruit.
* IdenticalStranger: A real-life version: Romane Bohringer looks amazingly like [[Series/{{NCIS}} Cote de Pablo]] in this movie.
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: The [[BadCopIncompetentCop incompetent Melbourne detective]] accidentally shoots Iain in the shoulder. To be fair, Iain was [[TooDumbToLive trying to grab it at the time]], but the other detective had told him repeatedly:
-->"Put it away, Russ."
* TheImmodestOrgasm: Sammy and Anya in the movie, but it's pretty much background music in the book. John even admits that he could 'listen to his housemates going at it all day' and used to position his chair at the point in the house of maximum creaking and groaning.
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler: Danny wakes up in time to stop Sam killing herself.]]
* LandDownUnder: As with ''Film/TheCastle'', Australia's own version of the trope: Sydney is horribly plastic and full of anal retentives, Melbourne is a town of corrupt cops where it's always raining miserably, and Brisbane is overrun with cane toads.
* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler: It's not outright stated, but very heavily implied that Nina was the one behind 'Robert J Corcoran', and she let Danny be falsely blamed. At the end of the movie, Danny pays off his debts and walks away a free man as the police go after Nina and Anya's taxi.]]
* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: When Sammy [[spoiler: tries to kill herself]], she puts on Music/NickCave's "The Mercy Seat", which wakes Danny up. He turns it off, but when he discovers what's going on, the music comes back on.
** The beginning has "Golden Brown" by the Stranglers playing very loudly, prompting Danny to go outside and demand that Flip turn it off. Turns out that Flip was watching ''Rage'', and he died while watching it.
* {{Leitmotif}}: Danny plays "California Dreaming" by The Mamas And The Papas every time he moves into a new house. It's also the song that plays over the ending and credits, as he and Sammy walk away from everyone and everything.
** Flip's death and the immediate aftermath has "Golden Brown" by the Stranglers.
* MeaninglessMeaningfulWords: About half of Danny's lines, mimicking the faux-philosophical ramblings of [[TroperDemographics Australia's semi-educated]].
* NoNameGiven: You can count the number of people with full names in this movie on one hand- and several of the first names aren't even hinted at. For example, Milo and Otis' names are never stated, Iain's name is only given at the very end of the Melbourne segment, and of the other housemates, only Danny gets a last name (Kirkhope).
* ObjectCeilingCling: 'It's a beef patty. Been up there for years.'
* OhCrap: Danny has one after he hears Sammy in the bathroom at 3 AM, looks down and [[spoiler: sees water coming out from under the door]].
** And in the beginning, when he finds Flip dead.
* OminousLatinChanting: The neo-pagans in the backyard. Although it's actually a list of goddesses from every culture imaginable.
* OneSceneTwoMonologues: Frequently. These people don't communicate well.
* OnlySaneMan: Arguably, Danny. Despite spending virtually the whole movie in a HeroicBSOD, he's more or less the OnlySaneMan by elimination.
* RefugeInAudacity: Milo's 'condoms with Aboriginal tribal paintings on them' spiel. That he and Otis were [[DrugsAreBad stoned at the time]] from a home-made [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome bucket bong]] isn't really an excuse.
* RunningGag: Danny cannot get any time to himself.
** "Berserk, gaga, talking in tongues..."
** ''Everybody'' when they show up at the door telling Danny to call his mum
* SacredHospitality: They serve tea and biscuits to the Brisbane landlord's goon. While he's threatening them.
--> '''Goon:''' Are any of you shitheads related to a [[DirtyCop copper]] or a [[SleazyPolitician poli]]? *{{Beat}}* (''back to phone'') Looks like we're in the clear. *sip* Damn good tea.
--> '''Sammy:''' It's chai, from India. Biscuit?
--> '''Goon''': No, thank you.
** Which later gets inverted when they're doing the same to the policewoman looking for Mr Corcoran, except it's Danny doing the offering while Sam and Anya fight in the background.
* SeriousBusiness: Writing. And Nick Cave. And neo-pagan moon festivals...
* SexForSolace: After she and Anya break up, Sam tries to invoke this with Danny, claiming that [[SexEqualsLove she needs to feel loved]]. When Danny refuses her, [[spoiler: she tries to commit suicide.]] It's actually double subverted because after all of that, they have sex anyway.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Parodied with Taylor. Not only is he not the American Vietnam veteran he acts like, he's not even American (his accent switches halfway through).
** Danny is a cross between this and TheStoic. He spends most of the movie either bored, annoyed or in a state of exasperation, until he has his BSOD at the end.
* ShipTease: Between Danny and Anya. Nothing really happens between them, though.
* TheStoner: Milo, both in the scene where he and Otis toke up with the bucket bong, and in the 'Always On My Mind' singalong.
* StrawFeminist: Sam, at first. Anya as well, of the neopagan "we were all better off when the year had 13 moonths and we engaged in human sacrifice, before patriarchal domination" variety
* TitleDrop: Near the end, written on a wall ''Film/ApocalypseNow''-style. In the book it's the very first line.
* TransparentCloset: Dirk. He's legitimately offended that no one was surprised when he came out.
* TrashOfTheTitans: Ho-ly shit. Some of the filth mentioned in the book's opening chapter has to be read to be disbelieved.
--> A rat died in the living room at King Street and we didn't know. There was at least six inches of compacted rubbish between our feet and the floor. Old Ratty must have crawled in there and died of pleasure. A visitor uncovered him while groping around for a beer.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The movie is a very condensed version of the book, which itself is a collection of John's actual experiences in sharehousing. Definitely not a tale for those who wish to retain their faith in humanity.
* WelcomeToHell: Sydney, during the segment 'Hell is other people' (which could have been the movie's other title).
--> '''Danny:''' Welcome to hell.
--> '''Sam:''' At least it's warm.
* WorldOfChaos: Neo-pagan cultists want to sacrifice one of the housemates over a backyard fire for the winter solstice, and the landlord's goons are going to start breaking limbs if they don't get their money. The other housemates deal with it by calling in the local skinheads, who ride dirt bikes through the house, cut the back of the house off with a chainsaw and then stand around and sing "Auld Lang Syne" with the pagans. Just another Thursday night in Bris-Vegas...
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