EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Dave from Ottawa Spoiled suburban girl Katrina turns into a femme fatale monster after her brother goes to prison in this Aussie portrait of a middle class crime wave. The box copy promises more in the way of sex and violence than this picture ultimately delivers, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The picture cuts back and forth from tell-all interviews to girl-gone-bad flashbacks and the effect, rather surprisingly, is not as jarring as it might be, as the cutaways were well-timed, and the overall pacing was quite slick. A low budget is in evidence, but the creators manage to combine a darkly comic tone with a believable situation and credible characters to create effective drama. Not great by any means but better than many similar films.

movedout Paul Goldman and Alice Bell's mockumentary "Suburban Mayhem" starts off with some measure of interest in its subjects' state of arrested development, but manages to fracture its focus into different pieces before it's through. The Aussie production does allude to its working class suburb's infant terrible syndrome, channeling the seminal "Romper Stomper" well enough by juggling murder, delinquency and a hefty pacing of sex, drugs and roll 'n' roll. However, setting the stage just doesn't cut it when the noxious characters woefully expose its wafer-thin plotting. Goldman's self-satisfied intentions are made clear enough and tacky dinner-table transgressions aside; the film's black comedy routine is merely discernible at best but it's just not particularly biting or droll. Katrina (Emily Barclay), its patricidal, chain-smoking femme fatale shoulders the film's best scenes despite the young character's tendency to regress into a badge for its director to smugly flash about as the latest and loudest provocateur of Australia's idyllic suburbia.

Eric Rose Apparently this film is nominated for several AFI awards including Best Actress for Emily Barclay. I can understand why - her performance is mesmerising and impressive given her public comments about the problems getting in character. The rest of the cast is very solid as well, and it was good to see Steve Bastoni on screen again, as he haven't been in much lately.From the start, with a cheesy special effect and the killer soundtrack, you have to either accept the proposition put to you, or walk out there and then. I found the loudness of the music almost physical - it was as much a character as Katrina. Mick Harvey has done some wonderful film-score work before, on Australian Rules and Chopper, not to mention his time with Nick Cave and this one adds to his reputation.Thinking of films in this genre, that I would compare Suburban Mayhem to, I'd have to go with Natural Born Killers as the top of the list. I don't think that this is quite in the same league as a work by Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, but it's still very well done.

markspencer_17 Boring Boring Boring.Sometimes I go into a film not wanting to be there or with negative pre-conceptions only to be blown away with it's originality and entertainment values. This was not one of these films.In an age of free to air TV programming mainly consisting of shows depicting death, killing and women using their sexuality to put men down, Suburban Mayhem has both for $15.During the Q&A after film writer (Alice Bell) could not answer the question asking her whether she liked her main character or not. Considering the films content I wonder what did her father did to her ?I cannot believe that the writer and the director would think that this was an interesting time for a movie like this. I cannot see anything new about it. If you really want to see killing just turn on the TV, people are doing it for real !!!!!The worst thing about it ? Its not entertaining !!!!!Save your hard earned money.