Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou (born 13 November 1992), known together online as RackaRacka, are Australian twin filmmakers, YouTubers, and stunt performers. They are known for their horror comedyYouTube videos. They won numerous awards, including the Best International Channel Streamy Award, Best Overall at the Online Video Awards, and the AACTA Award for the Best Web Show.
They began filming their backyard wrestling matches with close friends in Adelaide when they were 11 years old, inspired by WWE.[2] These included scenes of the brothers crashing into furniture, "flipping kids over and bashing them headfirst into the ground", and jumping off everything", including roofs. They also filmed in a half-built house, and caused the water to flood the site. They later said that some of the things they did were extremely risky and even life-threatening, and they were glad of a friend's elder sister who helped steer them away from doing these things that could have taken them down a path of juvenile delinquency.[3] At the age of 13, they moved on to making a "TV show" and "movies".[2]
In 2013 they started creating "fake fail" videos for Facebook, and a few months later started the YouTube channel RackaRacka.[2] Initially the channel was not monetised, with Danny financing the videos by volunteering for paid medical trials.[4]
The channel's first huge success was Harry Potter VS Star Wars, which attracted 7 million views in a week,[5] and won them a trip to the U.S.[6]
In 2014, Michael and Danny both crewed on the Australian horror film, The Babadook.[7] The production company responsible for The Babadook, Triptych Pictures, has also produced videos for RackaRacka, including: Versus, a series of three short films; RackaRacka Live (Stunt Gone Wrong); and Extreme Handball. Written and directed by the Philippou Brothers, these were shown on the Foxtel pay channel.[8]
On 10 July 2017, Danny and Michael revealed that they moved into a mansion with their close friends, marking the beginning of a series of videos for the channel titled House of Racka, which combined their real-life adventures and special effects skills altogether into a vlog-like series.[9] The House of Racka series became the majority of the channel's uploads for around a year. On 2 April 2018, among complaints of YouTube demonetising the channel, the brothers announced that they were being evicted from their mansion. Many fans thought this meant the end of the channel, as the video contained an emotional tribute to the experiences the twins had in the mansion, in a more sombre mood than they usually projected.[10] This was later proven to be false, however, as the two later revealed that the House of Racka series was the only cancellation to their YouTube careers.[11]
The twins' feature-length directorial debut is a horror film entitled Talk to Me, produced by Australian production company Causeway Films[13] and set in the filmmakers' hometown of Adelaide.[3] The cast includes Sophie Wilde, Zoe Terakes, and Miranda Otto, with the storyline about a young woman who summons dead spirits with a ceramic hand.[14]Talk to Me sold to numerous international distributors at Cannes in 2022.[15] It had a preview screening at the Adelaide Film Festival on 30 October 2022, the closing night of the festival.[16][17] The film had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on 22 January 2023,[18][19] and its European premiere at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival on 21 February 2023,[20][21] and was released in cinemas internationally from 27 July 2023.[6] On August 3, they revealed that a prequel had been shot utilising a screenlife perspective,[22] and on August 8, a sequel was confirmed to be in development.[23]
Future projects
In April 2023, the brothers were tapped to direct a new Street Fighter film for Legendary Entertainment and Capcom.[24] In June 2024, the duo were reported to have left the project, due to scheduling conflicts with their following original feature film, titled Bring Her Back.[25] As with Talk To Me, the film was produced by Causeway Films, and distributed by A24. The film stars Sally Hawkins and Billy Barratt.[6][26]
The Philippous have said that they want to continue to make films in Australia, where they prefer the filmmaking culture.[6]Bring Her Back began shooting in Australia in late June 2024.[25][27]
In December 2019, Michael was charged by South Australia Police with numerous crimes related to a video uploaded on 16 January 2019, which depicted him driving a heavily modified and watertight car on public roads while completely submerged and breathing partially through a hole in the roof.[29][30] He was ordered to appear in court on 14 January 2020,[31] but avoided conviction[6] after entering a plea deal that saw him pay $2,000 in fines and court costs and disqualified him from driving for two weeks.[32][33]
^"YouTube Prankster Avoids Conviction Over Underwater Car". Facebook. 10NewsFirst. Retrieved 28 July 2023. Michael Philippou... pleaded guilty to driving without due care and driving unregistered and uninsured, with the more serious charge of reckless driving dropped. The 27-year-old was required to pay more than $2000 in fines and court costs and was disqualified from driving for 14 days.
