Following its recent run of AACTA Awards, Snowtown is getting a release in the US on 2 March 2012. iTunes has released a trailer for the renamed The Snowtown Murders, a name which may have more meaning for the US audience who may not have as much of a connection to the name Snowtown. Unfortunately, it also makes it sound a little bit like a movie of the week or forensic investigation special. The US trailer also adds a fair bit of text spelling out why the murders were bad.
The official US synopsis reads as follows: Based on horrifying crimes discovered in Snowtown, Australia in 1999, The Snowtown Murders is Justin Kurzel’s directorial debut, a stark journey into a brutal subculture of suspicion, addiction and violence. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes’ Critics Week, the film follows Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), a mother raising her three boys in a poor suburb. After her latest boyfriend displays pedophilic tendencies, she takes up with a new man, hoping for security but instead welcoming an even more vicious predator into her home. John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) is the moral compass of a self-appointed neighborhood watch who, fueled by cigarettes and beer, cast judgments on those living around them. Bunting enlists his crew in acts of sadistic vigilantism on those he considers deviants, and in the process takes Elizabeth’s son Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) under his wing. The Snowtown Murders is an uncompromising film focused on the relationship between vulnerable teenager and a father figure who is revealed to be the worst kind of bully.
The original Madman trailer for comparison. It’s mostly the same, without all the explanatory text:
