When the police are reluctant to intervene, Elizabeth is contacted by Barry (Richard Green), a gay cross-dressing man who introduces her to John (Daniel Henshall).

John, who despises paedophiles and homosexuals, continually harasses the boyfriend via means such as throwing kangaroo's blood and body parts at his house until he moves away.

Jamie finds himself slowly drawn into John's homophobic and violent tendencies, unable to escape his charismatic and intimidating dominance.

Meanwhile, John influences the rest of the neighbourhood with his extremely homophobic views and separates Barry from his younger boyfriend Robert (Aaron Viergever).

Jamie is persuaded by John to lure his step-brother Dave (Beau Gosling) to the bank building, ostensibly to look at a computer for sale.

Against a black screen, captions reveal that South Australia Police discovered the remains of eight people stored in barrels in the bank vault of Snowtown on 20 May 1999, and the following day, John Bunting and Robert Wagner were arrested.

[6] Apart from Henshall and Green, the actors were locals with no acting experience, whom Kurzel had found in the area where the murders occurred, with most from Davoren Park.

"[18] Fiona Williams of SBS awarded the film three-and-a-half stars out of five, commenting that director Kurzel "sidesteps the gore—mostly—to focus instead on the circumstances that enabled the atrocities to occur ...

"[19] Channel Nine entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins gave the film a rating of zero stars, stating "This is as close to a snuff movie as I ever want to see … I don't care if it's rooted in truth or not, it's appalling.