Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Ruptured Reasoning: The Snowtown Murders (2011)



In case you missed the first post in this series over at Movie Coda, my roommate Justin and I are going to watch a horror movie each day until Halloween and write our thoughts about it. Any kind of horror is fair game, but the films must be available either on Netflix Instant or Hulu Plus. Each day we will alternate blogs, but I’ll link to the previous day’s post on here as well.

Sometimes we’ll have conflicting opinions, and sometimes we’ll agree. We’re not playing the game where we each take a different side of the argument. In other words, I’ll always have the correct opinion about each film, and every once in a while, when he agrees with me, Justin will be right too.

My first pick was The Snowtown Murders, a rare horror biopic. I had wanted to see it when it was in the theater in Ohio, but it had such a short run that I never made it. We’ll see if it was worth our while.



Netflix Instant Summary: “This grisly thriller is based on the true story of Australia's worst serial killer, John Bunting, and the people he convinced to help him.”

Directed by: Justin Kurzel

Cast: Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris

Chris: Well, last night’s film, The Snowtown Murders, was definitely a major change in tone from our first selection. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, considering that it’s based on the true story of Australia’s worst ever serial killer(s), but jeez, that was dark.

I’m still not entirely convinced that it was really a “horror movie,” though. Most of the things that happened were certainly horrifying, but it never seemed like it was actively trying to scare the audience. Disturb, yes. Frighten, no. Under most circumstances, that would be perfectly fine—I thought it was generally a quite good movie—but since we’re supposed to be watching horror, I don’t know if it quite fit the bill.

But this was my pick, so I have no one but myself (and Netflix) to blame. And again, I mostly liked it. It would be impossible to directly compare it with Pontypool since they’re so very different, but I would absolutely say that The Snowtown Murders is the better film. You know, for whatever that’s worth.

The uncharismatic Lucas Pittaway as Jamie Vlassakis
There were plenty of flaws, however. I spent much more time being confused than I should have, and I don’t really believe that was the director’s intention. Part of it had to do with my difficulty understanding the often thick Australian accents, but it was mostly due to the film not being laid out in a logical, cohesive fashion. There were several characters who we saw plenty of but were never really introduced to. I went to Wikipedia immediately after the movie ended to read more about the real crimes, and I realized that I didn’t know who most of the people discussed in the article were.

I might be willing to give the movie a pass on this, simply because it is primarily about John Bunting, the ringleader of the serial killers, told through the eyes of his stepson-cum-accomplice, Jamie Vlassakis. But if the movie is painting an accurate picture of their lives—a dubious proposition, I admit—then it would make sense to give us more than a cursory introduction to these people who play such a key role in the plot/murders.

As with Pontypool, I think the performances were pretty good. I give especially high marks to Daniel Henshall, who played Bunting convincingly as a power-hungry psychopath serial killer, which either speaks volumes about his acting ability or is a really bad sign about his personality, one of the two. James Franco/Keanu Reeves/Christian Slater hybrid Lucas Pittaway was okay, I guess, as Jamie, though the role was extremely reminiscent of James Frecheville’s character in Animal Kingdom.

If you haven’t seen Animal Kingdom, it’s about a kid in his late teens who, after his mother dies, is adopted by his extended family, who are apparently Australia’s answer to the Corleones. He doesn’t do much except watch as the people around him engage in unspeakably evil acts. That’s exactly the same thing as Jamie does here! I give him a lot of credit for being a good crier, but mostly he’s just a conduit for us to view the actions of Bunting. I’m sure he spoke more than I remember, but I can only come up with about five words he uttered during the entire movie.

Anyway, I talk too much. Long story short, The Snowtown Murders is a pretty good movie about a very evil group of men. Is it a horror movie? That’s debatable, but if you watch it, you’ll definitely have no shortage of horrors to think about for the next few days.

Justin: Ok, there are two things this movie is really good at.

First, the tone of the film is excellent. I love horror movies that create a universe so grotesque that the horror seems like a natural occurrence. Films like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Monster, and even such high-end fare like Taxi Driver and Se7en. Kurzel does a fantastic job of making the ordinary seem grotesque. Some of the insane meetings of the anti-pedophilia group felt very much like a Harmony Korine movie who is the master of the grotesquely watchable.

Everything is calculated to be off-putting and weird. The sounds of the machines early in the film, the looks of the extras and supporting characters, even the way Jamie eats his egg yolk. It leaves the viewer with a disturbing, squirmy feeling at the base of the gut. It's a world where visitors require a tetanus shot. Perfect for a film like this.

The real life John Bunting
The other great strength this movie has is the casting of Daniel Henshall. I'm in complete agreement with Chris here. Henshall is riveting as the charismatic serial killer. He seems so confident, so in control that until his darker nature is revealed he seems like a saving grace to this poor family. Once he turns, Henshall plays it to the hilt. He's frightening. There's a scene inside a car where he yells at Jamie and continually bashes his head into the window. It seems impossible to tell where this scene is going because Henshall's performance has given us two completely convincing sides to this man. Will he be the fatherly figure and give Jamie a stern lecture? Or will he torture him to death for disobeying his rules? I'll leave the answer up to you.

Other than that this film sucks. Like Chris I can't compare it to Pontypool. Pontypool aimed for middle ground and fell short. Snowtown aims high and falls even lower. It shouldn't be this way.

There have been many films about serial killers, but this one attempts to dig new ground. By focusing on the people this killer convinced and seduced into helping him instead of on the killer himself, it opens up a much more intriguing story. Instead of focusing on the murder spree and the run from the cops this movie focuses on the personal relationships between people so destroyed that they'll gratefully accept any sort of companionship, even if it does come from a murdering psychopath. It should have been interesting. It wasn't. I'll tell you why. It's a problem of perspective.

If this whole film is going to be told from the point of view of a latecomer, then he needs to be dynamic. He has to draw focus from an actor playing a charismatic villain. It's not easy. Think of Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. No matter how much fun we have with Lecter, Clarice still has our heart. So who do we get to compete with a compelling and complex performance? Well, in The Snowtown Murders we get one of the most vacant, boring, and useless protagonists I have ever seen.

Lucas Pittaway plays Jamie with two degrees of emotion: none and crying. This character literally takes action in the film only once and it's meaningless. The character never grows, never has an opinion, never affects the plot in any meaningful way. His drive seems to be that people tell him to do things and he does them. I understand that the character is supposed to so weak that he'd be taken in by the insane ramblings of a serial killer, but this is ridiculous. I haven't seen Animal Kingdom yet, so I can't draw that comparison, but characters who function as a mirror for the audience to view the world aren't a rarity.

Just from the list above there are two great examples: Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Michael Rooker as Henry Lee Lucas in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. It's not impossible. This character has to function as a portal into the film's world and when that portal lacks any charisma, when he barely seems able to care about the situation around him, then the audience feels the same way. The film lays there like a dead fish for us to gaze at. Really, this character would have been underwritten if he were a James Bond henchmen. Unfortunately he's the main character in the film.

Film is the worst medium for conveying straight facts. After watching this I'm sure that the Wikipedia article Chris read was just as enthralling. It just didn't take two hours.

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