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REVIEW: An Unassuming Monster Works His Gruesome Magic in Compelling Snowtown Murders

With his round, bearded face and gentle voice, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) is an unassuming monster — it takes a while to spot the terrible danger within him. In Justin Kurzel’s  The Snowtown Murders , based on an actual series of gruesome crimes that took place in South Australia in the mid ’90s, he’s the deceptive mastermind behind a string of serial killings, the leader of a group initially, at least in their own heads, bound together by a desire to enact vigilante justice.   The Snowtown Murders is the latest and bleakest in a string of Australian crime films showing flashes of virtuoso talent, and has more than a little in common with David Michôd’s 2010 hit Animal Kingdom , including a near-feral group of characters and a teenage boy whose eyes are the windows through which we see terrible things. But Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway) isn’t just a witness, he’s an eventual participant, and  The Snowtown Murders  builds into a multipronged horror effort in which the torture and murder on-screen are matched by the psychologically convincing disintegration of a previously sympathetic protagonist. Snowtown, which is located between Adelaide and Perth, is portrayed in the film as a shabby suburb, its downtrodden ugliness in contrast to the giant sky and empty landscapes outside that the camera occasionally pulls back to appreciate. Elizabeth (Louise Harris) is dating a guy who lives across the way, and leaves her boys, including Jamie, in his care. He uses the opportunity to take photos of them in their underwear, a request to which they acquiesce with a defeated air that becomes the film’s overarching sentiment. He’s out on bail in a day. Later, another character is raped by someone in his own family: He struggles, but eventually surrenders, lying still like the runt of a litter being forced to submit, the camera observing dispassionately from a distance as it happens. The residents of Snowtown seem to have accepted victimhood as their due, which is why John’s arrival is so initially welcome — he’s willing to fight back, even if it’s against the law, and he’s charismatic and funny and able to manipulate the welling rage just underneath the benumbed expressions of his followers. John inveigles his way into Elizabeth’s life romantically, and works a different sort of seduction on Jamie, whose hunger for a father figure is almost a physical manifestation. Signs that something’s not quite right with John surface slowly — he chops up kangaroos to toss on the doorstep of Elizabeth’s pedophilic ex, and later pressures Jamie into shooting his dog as proof of his ability to stand up for himself. The Snowtown Murders  internalizes the themes about dominance and survival that  Animal Kingdom has to make explicit — the only way to see John’s serial killing team is as a predatory pack over which he holds complete sway, their actions motivated by self-importance, by a need to belong, by fear and, eventually, enjoyment. John initially cloaks his actions as justice, primarily against molesters of children — the neighborhood enjoys gathering around a table to smoke and drink and talk about what they’d do to anyone they caught messing with their offspring, the imagining of violence a dizzying pleasure. “It’s not fucking mean if you kick the shit out of some diseased prick,” John points out. “He fucking deserves it. It’s an Australian fucking tradition.” But the killings expand from pedophiles to anyone John deems unworthy — the obese, the drug-addicted, the weak, the unmissable, and John brings Jamie into the fold, forcing the knowledge of what’s happening onto him, certain he’ll participate. (“I’m only looking after you, mate,” he tells the boy after revealing to him that he’s murdered one of his friends.) One of the film’s best, most difficult scenes finds Jamie watching as someone is chained to the bathtub, walking away, returning to see him get tortured, and going outside to sit as kids ride by on bikes. There’s nothing physically holding him there, but he can’t and won’t intervene or run for help, and so instead he gives in, buying into the illusion of power in what’s really just more powerlessness. The intentional unpleasantness of The Snowtown Murders  isn’t just due to its violence, but its harsh assessment of human nature, of how its characters’ unhappiness grows though they continue on the path they’ve chosen, too forceless to remedy the situation. The film is unflinching, but doesn’t sensationalize its content, which makes it all the more disturbing. In the blue-tinged world it portrays — wood-paneled rooms filled with cigarette smoke, decrepit couches on lawns and porches, a land of dead ends — it’s the dreadful normalizing of its crimes that’s haunting, the way they go undiscussed even as they grow and pull in everyone around, either as victim, victimizer or accomplice, helpless in the face of a soft-spoken psychopath. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: An Unassuming Monster Works His Gruesome Magic in Compelling Snowtown Murders

WATCH: Death, Zombie-Making, and Other Childhood Concerns Abound in Frankenweenie Trailer

Leave it to Tim Burton to make even the gruesomest scenarios utterly heart-wrenching; I started welling up during the first 30 seconds of the new trailer for Frankenweenie , the black and white stop-motion animation adaptation of Burton’s well-loved short of the same name. Watch it and shed a tear for the childhood pets you once loved. Frankenweenie is the tale of young Victor Frankenstein, who loses his beloved dog and best friend, Sparky, and then brings him back to life with science. The feature-length animation is adapted from Burton’s original Frankenweenie featurette , one of his early works and a live-action short that starred The NeverEnding Story ‘s Barret Oliver, Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, and a young Sofia Coppola. As lore tells it, Burton’s overlords at Disney were initially displeased with the 1984 Frankenweenie and fired him for making a movie that was too scary for kids; Burton went on to make his feature directorial debut on Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and subsequently made his name with the same macabre-yet-sweet sensibility that earned him the boot from Disney in the first place. Almost three decades later, Burton comes full circle with Frankenweenie and Disney, who hitched themselves to Burton with The Nightmare Before Christmas (released by Touchstone) and most recently enjoyed a megahit with his Alice in Wonderland . In a way, Burton himself prepped audiences to accept the kind of dark children’s storytelling in Frankenweenie with his previous films, so it all feels like poetic justice. Via Yahoo! : Verdict: Frankenweenie looks like the perfect melding of Nightmare / Corpse Bride -style stop motion and Burton’s original short, down to the Poodle Bride of Frankenweenie. Sold! Frankenweenie hits theaters October 5.

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WATCH: Death, Zombie-Making, and Other Childhood Concerns Abound in Frankenweenie Trailer

Zac Efron Admits He Totally Dropped a Condom on the Lorax Red Carpet

“You dropped a — a condom on the red carpet,” asked esteemed Today Show journalists Matt Lauer of The Lorax star Zac Efron , grilling the former High School Musical tween idol about the red carpet incident that had the internet agog last week. “That was hard for you to say, wasn’t it?” returned Efron, who coolly answered with an unabashed confirmation. Let me reiterate: Yes, that was a gold condom that fluttered out of Efron’s pants pocket at the premiere of a Dr. Seuss movie. WHAT OF IT, LAUER?? Kudos to the 24-year-old Efron for coming out on top from the awkward televised inquiry. Ever the pro, he even found a way to bring it back to The Lorax , an animated tale about the dangers of greedy industrialism and deforestation: “It’s a great message to add to the many messages in the film.” (Just wait for those Fox anchors to get wind of this.) Which is more than I can say about Lauer’s subsequent off-the-cuff joke. “You’ve got your own production company — what’s next for you? That’s a bad pun, by the way… your own production company !” Groan. What, no segue riff into Efron’s next movie, The Lucky One ? COME ON, LAUER! At least someone learned a lesson from EfrondomGate; The totally safe sex-having actor says a “pocket-checking policy” will be “fully instated” for future red carpet appearances. Thank goodness we can put this story to bed now. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy [via Today ]

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Zac Efron Admits He Totally Dropped a Condom on the Lorax Red Carpet