Welcome to Snowtown, next door to hell...

THE SNOWTOWN MURDERS (2011)
D. JUSTIN KURZEL

IFC

1.85

This indie drama based on the true multiple murder case in Australia that came to be known as the “Bodies in the Barrels Murders” A case where one charismatic killer led several other blue collar people to kill with him.

The film is very careful to establish mood and character long before getting to any violence. The movie more or less follows teenager Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) as he makes his way through the very disturbing stress of his day to day life. The neighborhood he lives in is a complete shithole (Shades of GUMMO abound) and his mother is doing everything she can to raise four boys, of which he is the middle kid. Within the first five minutes of the movie she has unwisely left the three youngest boys home along with her then boyfriend from across the street. He proceeds to sexually abuse all three of them (the youngest kid seems to be mentally handicapped or has some sort of autism), taking nude pictures of them (the rest of the abuse left up to our imagination thank god). Mom finds out when the local transgendered Queen Davey has heard the rumors. Naturally the police do nothing about the abuse.

Into their lives comes John Bunting (Danial Henshaw in a frightening performance) who is wooing the now single mom. He is charming, he is a good cook, and he is good with the kids. He takes a particular liking to Jamie, taking him under his wing and teaching him to stand up for himself. At first it seems like John is justifiably upset about the pedophile living across the street and takes it upon himself and Jamie to run the man out of town. But soon it is obvious that John has a much more pathological lust for violence. His raging homophobia being one element of it, he sees no difference between a pedophile and any other local gay man, and has several rants to prove it. But when Davey vanishes, leaving a voicemail claiming to have run away, everything seems to suspicious. But by this point John has ingratiated himself into the family, and has Jamie under his wing. It is only a matter of time before much more violence rears its ugly head.

Originally just titled SNOWTOWN (after the small town where the actual bodies in the barrels where found) this film is a pressure cooker mood piece, that wraps you up in the complex and unsavory characters and before you know it, you can’t get away.  It is a film where violence happens suddenly, but lingers like burnt flesh. This movie is all about characters that just exude pain and frustration, and it is that overbearing sense of ugliness that makes the movie both so powerful and so hard to watch.The movie leaves a stain on your mood that will be hard to shake for a long time afterward.

Review © Andrew Copp

Halloween Horror Challenge Oct 07: RICKY 6

RICKY 6 (2000) 

D. Peter Filardi 

No Distributer 

This fairly serious attempt to make a dramatic film out of the true crime book “Say You Love Satan” is actually pretty good. It is the fourth attempt to tell the story of suburban Satanist killer Ricky Kasso falling behind Tommy Turner's 1987 WHERE EVIL DWELLS (which was never properly finished due to the drug addictions of many people involved), 1994's MY SWEET SATAN by Underground auteur Jim VanBebber which is heavily fictionalized but still the best of the bunch (and I worked on extensively as a crew person and can be seen in if you look quickly) and the 1998 film BLACK CIRCLE BOYS which is not too bad either but nose dives in the third act with a completely bogus resolution.

But for what it is worth this film seems to the the closest to the facts by all accounts. I personally have not read the book, nor am I up on the real case outside of seeing the pretty lame documentary SATAN IN THE SUBURBS so I can't comment too much on how much it keeps to reality. I can say that the feel of the film is a naturalistic one, with acting that is not over the top, and an eye toward realistic location work. The film is set in 1983 small town where there is nothing to do but get high and listen to rock music. This is where we meet our lead characters (names changed from the real ones) Ricky Cowen (Vincent Kartheiser) a high school kid with heavy emotional problems. He is being dropped off to the local teen group for drug users and troubled kids. Here he meets Tommy Portelance (Chad Christ). They don't make friends right away, but bond later at school over the fact they both like to smoke pot and both find the girl in group attractive. Soon they both are friends and sneaking off to get high. One day Ricky sneaks off to check out the girl of his dreams in the library while fucked up on angel dust and ends up spending the entire day reading witchcraft books instead and it bends his mind to Satanism. He meets the local loony Pat Pagan (an over acting Kevin Gage) in the local occult shop and soon he is dabbling in black magic, trying to raise demons and getting his friends involved in the occult. He is also pounding harder and harder drugs along the way. Soon Ricky and Tommy have decided they are full fledged satanists, with Ricky in particular buying into the life. During a bad acid trip he sees demons and then Jesus and attempts to kill himself. He claims Jesus found out he saw the light in Satan and tried to kill him. Tommy and Ricky decide to flee to California to meet Tommy's real father since he is adopted. To raise the money to start selling mescaline at inflated prices. A friend of theirs rips them off in a deal which sets the scene for the murder they end up being famous for.

For the most part the film is anything but a horror film, it is more a dark slice of teenage life with the trappings of occultism surrounding it. Anyone who grew up in the 80's will recognize the music, hair styles and jean jackets. That general malaise of being an outcast teenager in the 80's where you didn't fit in and the music of Judas Priest could easily be telling you to pick up a gun and waste some motherfuckers. But of course smoking all that angel dust could have a LOT to do with that too. RICKY 6 goes a long way to getting those details right. An early scene where Ricky is playing catch with his step father is one such scene. His Step Dad purposefully hits him with the ball and Ricky tries to run off, but the man grabs him and wrestles him to the ground yelling at him about how he wont throw a temper tantrum about every little thing. It is a power play in front of the whole family and you can easily imagine the dick doing this often. It is a scene that went down in suburbia all the time. The kind of thing that drove teens into drugs, fights and violence all their own. Still does every day. On the contrary the movie has several fantasy sequences that work in varying amounts. The first two that deal with Ricky's early paranoia and introduction to Satanism don't really work and come off forced. The meeting Jesus scene and later an effects heavy hallucination of his parents dead and demons in his home is completely off putting. But much later right after the murder he hallucinates he is walking through hell and comes up to Satan sitting up on a huge stump. This bit of fantasy is truly stunning and one of the most effective moments in the entire film. For one, the devil they have created is one of the most simple yet frightening creations I have seen in a movie. The whole scene works psychologically and as just simple scary imagery. Later there is one more hallucination where he imagines a party scene where the demons are asking him to kill himself that works well too.

But the movie is not without some major faults. The first big one is the casing of lead actor Vincent Kartheiser. His performance is actually pretty good. It is certainly shaded well, and he goes along way to make Ricky sympathetic. But the problem is that I never bought him as the kind of kid that the other kids would follow, which is what happens. He is too goofy, too wholesome. He is just the wrong guy in the part. He would have been good in the Tweasel role, the kid they ultimately kill. In fact when the movie starts I thought that was who he was supposed to be. Chad Christ as Tommy is very good and I believed him, the lead role needed someone more edgy like him in the lead. There is also some love interest that takes up the mid section of the film that is just dead weight, it goes nowhere and fills very little purpose. Finally the biggest problem is the final murder scene. It simply isn't vicious enough. Granted I am not the right person to give an unbiased review of this as I worked on another film of this story and the murder scene we worked on is widely considered among the most violent ever shot. I don't know what the real life details were but even if they are somewhere in the middle of the two films, this movie pulls back by taking the point of view of the side lined characters who are on drugs, thus being able to play it out in a surreal manner. It soft peddles the scene, confuses it at times and robs it of the final narrative punch. 

For the most part RICKY 6 is a fine film with a lot to offer. It really is too bad it isn't available to the general public. Though I can't imagine how audiences in 2000 would have reacted in the post Columbine panic. I have heard that is part of why the distributor pulled its release though I cannot find any actual proof of that. I have also read on several internet boards that the producer is in Jail for some sort of money scheme and that is why the movie is unreleased. Once again I have no hard proof of that as well, so who knows if that is fact. Third unfounded reason is that I have heard there were music rights issues as this is filled to the brim with 80's hair metal such as DIO and IRON MAIDEN and lots of others and there has been talk that not all of that music got properly cleared at some point. But that seems silly as it could have simply been replaced. None of it is integral to the film. The movie is all over torrents and grey market sites and even You tube in a really crappy version (but you kids love watching movies on the you tube anyway!) so check it out. It is worth the effort to track down. 

Review © Andrew Copp

Here is Tommy Turner's Unfinished version of the same story
WHERE EVIL DWELLS

British Psycho Chiller!

The Black Panther (1977)
D. Ian Merrick
Unknown
VHS O.O.P

This British lensed True Crime pic is easily one of the most clinical and cold films ever put to celluloid. While not as good, it ranks up there with the German film Angst in cold blooded depiction of crimes.

The Black Panther tells the true tale of one Donald Neilson (formerly Donald Nappey in real life who had changed his name because of the bullying he took over the last name because that is British slang for a diaper) who was responsible for the deaths of several burglary victims and ending with a 17 year old heiress he kidnapped. This film wasted no time getting to the screen as the case has just wrapped up literally the year before in 1976.

The film opens with Neilson in the woods performing what appears to be survivalist duties. But it turns out to be is his woods bound hideout for a robbery attempt. But this attempt sets the stage for those to come as he bungles it when someone finds him rummaging about and he flees without any of wares. Though back in the woods he does an admirable and thorough job of dismantling his campsite so there is no trace of his presence.

We soon see that he has a wife and teenage daughter that he treats horribly. Commanding them around like he is a drill Sargent in the army and they are his recruits. Even the tiniest infractions are met with his disdain. he spends hours alone in his room pouring over blue prints and photos from the city plotting his next robberies. When he is not doing that he is remembering his time in the war with pictures and warm memories.

But his robberies never go as planned. He dons a black hood and manages to show some skill getting into the places (usually post offices or general stores) but he always has to go that extra step and get keys or what not from people who live attached to the places and ends up facing off with unexpected people. He doesn’t set out to kill anyone, but they meet his shotgun anyway.

The press label the murderer The Black Panther because the surviving family members describe a man in a black hood. When he sees a newspaper article about a teenage heiress who recent was awarded a huge amount of money in the death of her parents. He sets his sights higher for some kidnapping and extortion. He finds a storm tunnel underground that is rarely used and makes that the place where he will store his captive. Unlike his other adventures, this one goes off without a hitch. He gets the girl and gets her into the drain, ties up and she cooperates. his complex plan of leaving notes, having her family makes calls and set up meetings is put into motion. Naturally the family call the police, which is what screws it up and things do not go as planned.

As I stated before this is a cold, calculated movie. It isn’t really a character study as you don’t get much characterization from anyone, especially the lead. This film is much more interested in laying out the facts as they happened. And from what I understand it does so as close to reality as possible.

Donald Sumpter plays the lead role (he can most recently be seen in David Cronenberg’s crime drama Eastern Promises) and is chilling. He plays this guy as a wound spring. Tight, rigid and waiting to blow. But he only blows in small fragments, just long enough to make a mistake and kill someone. Then he heads right back into his shell and is rigid and rock solid again. he’s living some sort of paramilitary superman fantasy that we never are really clued into, but it is clearly there in the performance.

The version of this I saw was from a well worn VHS that I got from a bit torrent site. So I have no idea where it exists. I keep thinking this might be in one of those 50 pack DVD sets, but I may be getting it confused with another film called Day of the Panther.

Andy Copp

Screen caps and ripp from empoapes at cinemageddon