Snowtown

source: The Snowtown Murders

I saw this film get good reviews and thought I would give it a go, like you do. I sat through it to the end even though nothing really seemed to happen and the events in the film were quite random and I did start hoping it would finish soon. I think the film-makers were assuming people would have prior knowledge of the events of the film before viewing it, as it seemed to veer from scene to scene quite randomly, i got the gist of what was happening but it was not really compulsive viewing. The story matter is based on real-life events and I found it to be grim viewing, with little reward or insight into the characters, and I felt the boy playing the lead was not very interesting to watch. I guess I expect to be entertained or gain some insight into something when I watch a film but in this case neither of these things happened. Quite dull all in all.

Wildly over-hyped, overestimated Aussie flick about their local serial murderer celebrity. This attempt at gritty and crude reality has been seen time and time again before, with usually better results. The thing drags and drags on and on, with interminable scenes including a bunch of people who are never introduced in the first place (who'll only vanish later, without further explanations) bantering and chit chatting back and forth for what seems forever. From time to time, though, the perpetrator of this celluloid waste does try to wake the spectator with some violent scenes, the most gruesome of which involving (real) animal cruelty. Excuse me? Dude (yes I'm talking to you, beginner Kurzel), the happy days of Cannibal Holocaust and all are over, hello? To have real animal cruelty in a movie today is totally inexcusable. If the producers of this crap didn't have the doughs necessary to plod forward with special effects, they should have abstained. Period. Notwithstanding the cynics, you don't take lives for the sake of entertainment. And this thing is not even entertaining. Lastly, if you want to understand ANY of this mess, you'd better have a solid grasp on the John Bunting events before you watch this. Otherwise, it'll be nameless characters galore which won't make any sense to you. Pass on it, though. And hope Kurzel isn't allowed to approach a camera ever again.

I suppose there are some people out there who will revel in this kind of movie; but for the serious movie buff - save your money. I have seen a few real stinkers in my time, but this is way beyond the boundaries of acceptable movie narratives. The actors are all second grade to start with. The Director is off the planet or on a very strong substance. There is no real attempt to bring cognizance of the actual happenings to the screen, the focus by the director is mainly on his own view of the occurrence. If you followed the court case at the time, this movie has very little bearing on what was given in evidence at the trials. A totally fictitious, drawn out, movie to no purpose whatsoever. A rating of -10 would be appropriate.

So, another indie film praised to be blah blah amazing etc whatever. Films starts off with a confusing monologue to passing fields filmed from inside a car. Main character barely speaks at all....gets raped by his brother......acts like it never happened....???? Main character Jamie (who is aged 15/16 or around that) lets a paedophile take * pictures of himself and his younger brothers......is that even realistic???? Is this guy a retard with no brain and just lets people abuse him constantly? He is a puppet throughout this film. Mum gets a new boyfriend whos a serial killing psychopath and kills quite a few people throughout the film without her knowing, and by the way where the hell is she during all these violent scenes in the film? Shes NEVER there. We find out that Jamie is a schizophrenic so could explain his behaviour to everything happening around him. BUt by this point in the film I'm losing track of what is going on. Sorry but this film is so disjointed and its like watching a film about mentally ill people. There is a nasty graphic bathroom scene which involves the serial killer slowly killing Jamie's brother, the one who raped him. Seriously, what is the point???? What is the point in showing him chop up dead kangaroos also???? I never believe the reviews by critics and the like but I at least expected this to be a well made film and its not. It's a incoherent mess which relies on violence to make an impression.

Apart from a millisecond of good acting by some newcomer found at a shopping mall, SNOWTOWN is a boring Australian film about rednecks killing each other in crappy houses in garbage strewn suburbs. As a film it proves that the untalented can grind out a film as competently as anybody but unfortunately it just ends up being bogan misery. To what end? Redneck Realism.... apparently. With a script full of crude cruelty dialog and shot in greyscale color SNOWTOWN depicts the uneducated killing their neighbors and then going for a drive in the car as sports play on the radio or TV. So what. Yes exactly. A terrible waste of resources and a tedious waste of your time, SNOWTOWN is for illiterate film makers who think filming atrocities and having unknowns recite swearing is some major step forward in their career.

An Australian version of a serial killer movie. Cool. I couldn't wait. For me, Snowtown was in the same category as Titanic and Apollo 13 – I knew the story and knew what happened, so what could they do to make it surprising and entertaining? Well, I was certainly surprised. I must admit to being slightly conflicted about writing this; without wanting to go for the cheap joke, I should say, I have no axe to grind, and it's not without due consideration, that I pour scorn on other people's labours (after all, I'm sure the writer and director set out to create the best movie they could, and, when all's said and done, one's best is all one can do in life). But I left the cinema slack-jawed. And annoyed. Miraculously, the story of Australia's most prolific serial killer, which, at one end of the spectrum could have been treated as a splatter extravaganza, has been made to be, well, boring. Just utterly tedious. And that, for me, is the worst crime a movie can commit. Whatever the subject, style, treatment or genre, before the other layers of social commentary, polemic exposition and cultural observation, the cinema is an entertainment medium. Plug into my emotions and make me feel something; positive or negative, amused,amazed, repulsed or disturbed – that's all part of the cinematic contract, for which the audience signs up - but not for seat-shifting boredom. Okay, clearly establish the characters' environ by all means, but when I was checking my watch in the reflection of the screen after what turned out to be only twenty five minutes into the session, I knew this was going to be a long two hours. It could easily have been called 'Mastication Nation' as there were so many scenes of people eating – messily and loudly. I heard myself saying 'oh not again'. If you took kitchen tables out of the script, that'd be half the props gone. I'm sure the eating scenes could be post-rationalized, or intellectualized as depictions of a sense of family, coming together, communion, safety in a brutish, base world. I don't care. After a couple of such scenes, we were just aware that Mr Bunting's parents apparently hadn't taught him many table manners. But we didn't even find out if Mr Bunting's parents had taught him how to appropriately pack a barrel; that part of the story, again,was pedestrian. For what it's worth, I found the music incredibly evocative, the casting was spot on, and the actors acquitted themselves superbly(Jamie's eyes filling with tears on cue was astonishing). But generally,it all made Mike Leigh look like Spielberg.

Two hours is not a long period of time but it's possible to do something useful, like organize one's sock drawer, or clean out the garage. In any case choosing to watch this mediocre film should not be one choice: it's a waste of time. It may be that the idea behind Snowtown was to reflect on Hannah Arendt's phrase, "the banality of evil" which she applied to Adolf Eichmann's trial and his mass murders, in other words, to unravel the mind of a killer. Whatever the case may be, this film lacks any insightful intelligence in that regard and is an incompetent telling of a gruesome story. It is also very, very boring for a number of technical and creative faults. Firstly: it lacks any story as the outcome is known and secondly, the film fails in dramatic pitch or arc between the characters: events simply unfold in the same metronomic pace. The pace is identical throughout which is a huge creative failure and leads to a numbness of interest. The camera work is all close-up reality TV style and the pacing is consistent but consistency is the work of mediocrity. But the worst error is editing as all the scenes have the same rhythm and shot syntax: hold shot on character: revert shot to opposite character: hold shot to close. After 30 minutes it is evident that this is incompetent and unfinished work. The lack of dialog does not help either as no one speaks often and certainly without any intelligence: these are the dregs of humanity. Two hours in their company is dispiriting and without any value at all, especially in the way the filmmakers have rendered the story.

I don't understand why people are coming down on this film, i thought it was amazing and spectacularly represented the emotions of the people involved rather than the actions. I am glad it didn't go into all the violence into more detail even though i know the real killings were worse than depicted in the film. I think that it was not the intention of the director to have another gory wolf creek serial killer story. I had not heard any hype about the young actor looking like heath ledger until now but had commented to my partner a few times in the movie how striking the similarity was! I loved this film and thought it was well directed and have no idea how the actors got through some of those scenes.. well done.

The Snowtown Murders also known as the Bodies in Barrels murders were the murders of 11(the twelfth charge of Suzanne Allen was dropped due to lack of evidence)people in South Australia, Australia between August 1992 and May 1999.The crimes were uncovered when the remains of eight victims were found in barrels of acid located in a rented former bank building in Snowtown, South Australia on 20 May 1999.The leader of the perpetrators was John Justin Bunting.He hated paedophiles,gays,drug users and obese people.The victims were horribly tortured before death using everyday tools such as pincers,pliers and clamps.The final victim of Bunting and his murderous crew was cannibalized."Snowtown" is an unsettling crime drama based on The Snowtown Murders.The acting is great,the atmosphere of decaying landscape is bleak and there are some brutal scenes of torture,murder and animal dismemberment.8 murders out of 10.