05/01/2023, 10:00 Mapping the Cinematic Journey of Alexander Pearce, Cannibal Convict www.screeningthepast.com/issue-34-first-release/mapping-the-cinematic-journey-of-alexander-pearce-cannibal-convict/ 1/25 Current Issue Back Issues Occasional Papers Publications Webteque Events About Us Archives Current Issue Screening the Past > Mapping the Cinematic Journey of Alexander Pearce, Cannibal Convict Mapping the Cinematic Journey of Alexander Pearce, Cannibal Convict Jane Stadler Introduction The story of Alexander Pearce’s arduous journey through southwest Tasmania and the gruesome fate that befell his comrades on their famishing trek across the island state has been narrated many times in song, on the stage, in print, and on screen. Most famously, the story of Pearce’s escape with seven other convicts from the Sarah Island penitentiary in Macquarie Harbour in 1822 was told with dramatic license in novelist Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life. [1] The historic convict narrative, itself grounded in actual events, was later renamed For the Term of His Natural Life and made into a film shot at Port Arthur in 1908 by Charles McMahon; remade in 1911 by Alfred Rolfe as The Life of Rufus Dawes; remade again in 1927 by Norman Dawn; then adapted once more as a TV miniseries in 1983 by Rob Stewart. Craig Godfrey later directed a straight-to-video, schlock horror-comedy called Back from the Dead (1996) at Port Arthur and Hobart, featuring the modern-day resurrection of a cannibalistic killer convict called Kavendish who was imprisoned in Port Arthur and who “is loosely based on Alexander Pearce.” [2] Tracing Pearce’s Gaelic heritage, Barrie Dowdall filmed a documentary for Ireland’s Channel 4 titled Exile in Hell (2007). More recently the horror film Dying Breed (Jody Dwyer, 2008) imagines Pearce’s inbred descendents feasting on unwary travellers who venture into the wilderness in search of the