The Snowtown Murders

The original plan for today was to write a review for the movie Prisoners which stars Hugh Jackman and is set around American Thanksgiving, which seemed to make it semi-appropriate since it is right now Canadian Thanksgiving.  It is not exactly a feel-good holiday romp, however, as it centres around the abduction of two young girls and looks at how far a father would go to save his daughter.  Both audiences and critics are showing some good love for this film, and it ended up as second runner-up for the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

As it is with anything, there are times when we need to diverge from our plans and go with where our gut is.  In my case, I am switching to a movie which will be a part of an upcoming Halloween podcast on horror movies, films which I had only planned on blogging about once the podcast was posted.  Part of the switch up is because of the desire to talk about the great elements of The Snowtown Murders, but the other reason is because of my own personal digestion and debriefing of what I just witnessed.

As much as I may want to focus on other things, it is the final images of the Australian horror movie about the real life serial killer John Bunting that haunt my mind and my soul.  It is a horror movie, but not in the traditional use of the word.  A typical horror tells an unraveling story of a protagonist in a life and death struggle against a malicious force, be it human or supernatural.  It stimulates our sense of fear and disgust through jump scares, a marketable villain, heart pulsing cat and mouse scenes, and various kill sequences.  This movie had next to none of that, but left me more unsettled about the psychopathic realm of human existence than even the most gruesome of horrors.

From the very first scene, it was evident that this movie was heading in a different direction than most horror movies.  Instead of chasing for entertainment from adrenaline, it looked to de-glorify the dark nature of the subject matter and spent all of its time revolving around the madness and insanity, the disturbing descent of people into involvement in truly horrific events.

We are first met with a family that has a definite level of dysfunctionality around it, but are centred by a mother who tries her best to provide security for her boys.  After her sons are left in the care of a neighbour who takes inappropriate pictures of them, she is introduced to Bunting who stands up for her family and harasses the perpetrator until he moves out.  To make sure the audience does not start to get the feeling that this man is a great hero, director Justin Kurzel shows Bunting emotionlessly hacking the head and limbs off of kangaroos that he has dragged into the backyard.  The groundwork is laid for an uneasiness towards Bunting.

Playing the role of John Bunting is Daniel Henshall, whose performance is ultimately what elevates the level of horror in this movie past its contemporaries.  I have always believed that to make a movie about a cult leader personality (Bunting had a number of people assist with the murders he committed) the actor or actress playing the leader must play a perfectly dynamic performance that captures an otherworldly captivating charisma, as well as a dominant powerful side that shows a commitment to action that the followers would not themselves normally take.  Henshall nails this role incredibly, and became, to me at least, the epicentre of manipulative evil that would take the people around him in awful directions.

Bunting inserts himself as a father figure to the boys of the family, and a protector to the mother, and both of these are evident in his charismatic nature.  It is through time that the family begins to become involved in the nefarious deeds of Bunting, who is geared towards torturing and killing homosexuals and pedophiles.  The main family member that the film follows is Jamie Vlassakis, a teenager who ends up being involved in the abominable killings.  The movie allows a slow pace, which strings us along, down the path towards the insane nature of manipulation that allows Bunting to gain Vlassakis as an accomplice.

Kurzel uses great technical aspects to assist in the emotion of the audience.  The scenes are framed in ways that tell us of community, love and security, but then the skilled hands of the director are able to easily set up shots that let us know the atmosphere is shifting and that the horizon brings with it a grave darkness.  Music is also a powerful tool used, and a very simple score during the movie's intro lead to an anxiety in my heart.  It was not since seeing a scene of Suspiria that music held such power in not just establishing emotion, but delivering it as well.

What was most unconventional with this horror movie, and also the most powerful, was the limited scenes of gore.  The general logic around this genre is that gruesome needs to be front and centre, and that the script acts as a vehicle for transporting the audience from gory scene to gory scene.  Kurzel seemed quite aware that the best image generator in the world is the human imagination, and left almost everything to insinuation.  He was able to provide such great lead-ins to situations that our brains were more than willing to take it the rest of the way, creating possibly even more unsettling scenarios than Kurzel could have pulled off.

The climax at the end was a very slow build (much like the movie as a whole), and pulled in the usage of both excellent visuals, an escalating and evolving musical score, and a lot of time for the viewer to anticipate the outcome.  In the end, we are shown just the introduction to a scene that our minds are haunted with as they determine the outcome in a way that our own moral nature would not have us normally contemplating.

This movie was a slog for me.  I was wading through morality and insanity, and pondering the true depths of human darkness the entire time.  What I was left with was a film experience that was at the peak of its craft, but subject matter that still keeps my mind captive and in torment.  While I easily recommend this film, I also do not at the same time.  There is nothing glorifying here.  There is no fun and marketable villain, there are no jump scares that have us laughing with friends about afterwards.  There is just a grim and dark realization that human existence is cabable of unspeakable actions, that monsters exist and that they look like our neighbours.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars