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One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Absolutely Fantastic

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Based on true events, this Australian drama details the friendship that an Adelaide teen sparked with a neighbour who went on out a vicious killing spree. Daniel Henshall is excellent as the charismatic serial killer with scary moody swings; he has several intense moments as he passionately talks about killing and maiming homosexuals and child abusers while ruing how nobody takes vigilante action against such individuals. With this stance clear early on, 'Snowtown' follows a logical progression as Henshall begins acting on his own words in increasingly brutal ways. Meanwhile, the teen protagonist is torn between wanting to support his new surrogate father and being disgusted by his vile actions. Bits and pieces of this dynamic feel under- cooked; the teenager never changes very much throughout despite becoming more complicit in the murders. Establishing a stronger link between Henshall's hates and his victims' deaths would have also made him easier to understand. By all accounts though, the real killer's motives are still the subject of debate, so the vagueness is arguably appropriate. Whatever the case, the movie features some of the most grueling torture scenes ever filmed, plus it spins a resonating tale of a teenager whose nightmarish, abused home life becomes even more of a nightmare when he reaches out to the one adult in his life who he thinks he can trust.

We see some people being murdered, but learn little about them or why most of them were targeted and tortured to death. With the actual events, at least half the victims seem to have been murdered so John and the others could receive their welfare cheque, but virtually no attention is paid to this motive in the movie. There is no explanation in the movie of why the last murder victim was chosen. He was neither a pedophile nor a homosexual, and was not a welfare recipient whose cheques could be taken by the criminals. The cannibalizing of the final victim is not mentioned in the movie, and we get no hint that by this time, the murderers were simply addicted to killing and were doing it to satisfy sadistic urges. It would have been better if the some of the time-consuming drawn- out scenes were shortened, and replaced by a bit more information on what was going on and a better background of the people involved.I found the same in Justin Kurzel's version of MacBeth. It was not nearly as good as Roman Polanski's movie, because some of the most important parts of the story and some famous lines are left out, and there are those unnecessary long pauses where little happens.With a more capable director, this story could be re-made into a better, more informative movie.

Being a South Australian myself growing up close to these kind of bleak areas in country SA in the 1990s, this film was very well made and meticulous with capturing the atmosphere and bleakness of underclass South Australia. Everything in the film such as; the low saturation and contrasting colours, the personalities and emphasis of poverty and boredom of the people who live in Northern Adelaide, and the depressing tenure of the ghetto like environment, these factors are absolutely dead straight. There were many places in regional Australia that actually feel and look like this today, especially in the South East like Millicent and Mt Gambier.The great thing with Australian movies such as this, there is absolutely no need to sugar coat anything to really draw your attention to the deep level of the realism of the film, everything is there and raw. And because of this way of filming, you really feel like that you're actually there witnessing these horrible acts of murder yourself in real life and it makes a much larger impact of horror to the audience than what most movies with similar subject matter I have seen. This really made my toes curl up it was so sickening what the Snowtown murderers actually did to these people who they manipulated to trust.It is amazing how sociopaths can really manipulate others. Goes to show that even the most vigilant of people can fall into their traps.

SNOWTOWN is a true-life story about a serial killer and his associates who were prevalent in Australia during the 1990s. A low-key production that goes for gritty realism above everything else, the film this most reminded me of was HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER; it has the same level of harrowing and distressing subject matter while being incredibly powerful at the same time.SNOWTOWN isn't quite up there on a level with HENRY - there are a few too many scenes of people sitting around and eating for a start - but it is an undeniably effective movie. The casual brutality of the movie will make this hard to sit through for many viewers, with the scene involving the dog being particularly gruelling; meanwhile, the bathtub sequence is one of the nastiest I've ever witnessed. Aside from these moments, the rest of the movie is surprisingly restrained, a slice-of-life exploration of how 'white trash' get on with their lives.The acting is fine, particularly from Daniel Henshall in a star-making performance, and the script is very good. I wish there had been a little more resolution at the end but then you can't have everything. SNOWTOWN is about as far away as you can get from a mainstream Hollywood movie and it's all the more effective because of that. And I'll reiterate how incredibly grim it is: would I sit through it again? Not a chance!