By the time you reach the minute-forty mark of the new trailer for Justin Kurzel‘s The Snowtown Murders (previously known just as Snowtown), when a pullquote from the Financial Times about the film pops up, you’ll probably know if the film is for you. After all, that very pullquote reads “Presents a world of moral nightmare, and sits us inside it, to feel the pulse and the processes of evil as if they were our own.” And before that one? A quote from Film Comment that exclaims that the film is “profoundly disturbing.” So, not one for family movie night.
The winner of the Jury Prize at 2011 Cannes Film Festival, an entry at other festivals across the country (including AFI FEST and Fantastic Fest), and the winner of no less than four Australian Academy Awards, Kurzel’s film is also his directorial debut and it looks to be a stunner. Based on the real life tale of Australia’s most notorious and shocking murders in the suburb of Snowtown, the film explores the relationship between some of those guilty of the crime. If it’s half as captivating as this trailer, that “masterpiece” billing just might stick.
The Snowtown Murders will be released theatrically in NYC on March 2nd, with a planned national rollout to follow.