Snowtown

16 year-old Jamie lives with his mother and abusive brothers. He is taken by his mother's new lascivious boyfriend. John and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watch takes Jamie under their wings. They drive out the boyfriend. The relationship leads to a spree of torture and murder.

This is an Australian film based on true events. This is a highly disturbing movie. To say that they are white trash is to insult white trash. The rampant homophobia is shocking, but then it gets much much worst. I feel that I have to warn that it dives head first into pedophilia and serial torture murders. It is truly soul grindingly gruesome. It gets really tiring to one's being. I do like the atmosphere in the movie although it does drag at times. It is a tough watch, and good only for people who are willing.

Still makes me shudder when I think of it. One of the most intensely distressing movies I have ever seen. Seriously raw stuff. Chilling in its depiction of the Snowtown murders. Recommended viewing, but not for the squeamish.

The acting is so credible that I feel like I am really in the home of these working class Australians that I have known in my childhood in the 1990s. This is a dark, dark film, but so it should be. It sticks in my mind when I think of the deepest, most nihilistic chasms of this world, and whatever we do in life, that place is always there. The crimes begin with a grain of righteous intent and spiral down into that deepest sea trench. Recommended if you can face it.

Brilliant in it's authenticity and simplicity. The attention to detail, costume and set design deserve recognition and credit. As the viewer you actually feel like your in the 90s, from the Nike Air sneakers to the Sega Master System etc. There is no clear distinction between characters at the beginning of the film, who are complex to say the least.This may leave some audience members confused, but also add to the intended emotions of the film. The actual murders were committed amongst the seemingly mundane and relatively normal lower class suburbs of Adelaide. The director Justin Kurzel, does a fine job at recreating that image. I loved this film because I am some what a crime buff and have a profound interest in Australian criminal history. This movie captures the very essence that is Snowtown. Crime buffs especially will enjoy this movie. The director doesn't necessarily rely on graphic imagery to the extent some people may think. More the psychological game of fear and suspense is applied through out the feature with impeccable brilliance. My heart was racing for a majority of the time, even the quieter moments don't allow you time to relax as the suspense builds. Snowtown is definitely not for the faint hearted or squeamish, but it is for those who can appreciate gritty Aussie crime flicks.

I agree with the other people who have written reviews who say that it is good to get some background on the murders as I watched this without any and was confused in parts. What is interesting is that the film makers either assumed that you would have this knowledge, or accepted that the plot would only partially be known. In that sense we really are like witnesses who aren't let in on all the facts - in a strange way keeping some of the plot details leads to the sense of claustrophobia in the film.

Snowtown is an excellent example of the genre of gritty Australian realism which includes films like The Boys and Idiot Box.

This reminded me a lot of The Boys in building tension slowly and I think the rhythm of the film was spot on. It was also similar in the sense that it suggested that poverty and a lack of opportunity lead to violence (not necessarily for Bunting but probably for the other characters). But I think this just reinforces prejudices about poverty that middle class people have.

I think that Jamie was a very good choice as a main character because he clearly had the most complex relationship with Bunting and what he was doing. As the audience we were also invited to have that relationship then

I was pretty surprised that the film only had an MA rating rather than R, particularly given the nature of the violence portrayed.

It is quite a well crafted film and the concepts it presents are quite disturbing. It shows the killers to be very cold, calculating and generally indifferent in the way the murders unfold.

I don't think it will be a very accessible film for most cinema goers, as the style and tone are very depressing. It is a very simple plot on the surface but the way it presents the characters is sometimes quite confusing, and i found it quite hard to follow who all the characters were and how they were related. It is appropriately photographed, the production design is correctly sparse and bleak and the soundtrack is very effective.