Snowtown (also known as The Snowtown Murders) is a 2011 Australian biographical crime drama directed by Justin Kurzel in his directorial debut and written by Shaun Grant based on the true story of the Snowtown murders.
Contents
Plot
In the poor Adelaide suburb of Salisbury, 16-year-old Jamie lives with his distressed mother, Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), and his brothers—including half-brother Troy, who rapes Jamie. One day, his mother's boyfriend takes indecent photographs of the boys. When the police are reluctant to intervene, Elizabeth is contacted by Barry, a gay cross-dressing man who introduces her to John. John, who despises paedophiles and homosexuals, continually harasses the boyfriend via means such as throwing kangaroo's blood and body parts at his house until he moves away. John begins to assume the role of Jamie's father figure. Barry tells John the names and addresses of paedophiles in the area, and John creates a wall with pictures and details about each, including notes saying things like "I'm coming for you".
Jamie finds himself slowly drawn into John's homophobic and violent tendencies, unable to escape his charismatic and intimidating dominance. On one occasion, John, aware that Jamie is being raped by his brother Troy, wants Jamie to stand up for himself, and in pursuit of this, gives him a gun and has Jamie shoot his dog. Meanwhile, John influences the rest of the neighbourhood with his extremely homophobic views and separates Barry from his younger boyfriend Robert. Only Troy seems to dislike John. Barry soon disappears, leaving behind only an answering machine message saying that he is going to Queensland. John brings Jamie in as the neophyte member of his small team who "bury men".
