The Snowtown Murders

Directed by Justin Kurzel
Starring Daniel Henshall, Lucas Pittaway and Craig Coyne
120 min, blu-ray

Based on horrifying crimes discovered in Snowtown, Australia in 1999, THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS is Justin Kurzel’s directorial debut, a stark journey into a brutal subculture of suspicion, addiction and violence. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes’ Critics Week, the film follows Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), a mother raising her three boys in a poor suburb. After her latest boyfriend displays pedophilic tendencies, she takes up with a new man, hoping for security but instead welcoming an even more vicious predator into her home. John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) is the moral compass of a self-appointed neighborhood watch who, fueled by cigarettes and beer, cast judgments on those living around them. Bunting enlists his crew in acts of sadistic vigilantism on those he considers deviants, and in the process takes Elizabeth’s son Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) under his wing. THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS is an uncompromising film focused on the relationship between vulnerable teenager and a father figure who is revealed to be the worst kind of bully.

“Profoundly disturbing.” -Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Trailer: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/snowtown