Suburban Mayhem

Section: Elements of Crime
Directed by: Paul Goldman


Australia, 2006

Dir.: Paul Goldman
Scr.: Alice Bell
Phot.: Robert Humphreys
Editor: Stephen Evans
Music: Mick Harvey, Liam Egan
Cast: Emily Barclay, Michael Dorman, Anthony Hayes, Genevieve Lemon, Robert Morgan, Laurence Breuls
Format: 35 mm
Colour
90 mins
www.suburbanmayhem.com

Trailer

Unrepentantly slutty and foul-mouthed, nineteen-year-old single mom Katrina Skinner is a hellcat who captivates your attention - both out of fascination and fear of her unpredictable nature. Living in an ordinary suburb of an ordinary city, Kat’s world revolves around her cell phone, petty crime, fast cars, manicures and blow jobs. A more neglectful mother would be hard to find: Kat dumps her toddler daughter with her boyfriend du jour, to go on a bender, seducing her brother’s reclusive and dim-witted friend. In her frenzied state of mind, she concocts a scheme to sell the family house - which is only possible if her father were to die suddenly. Which of the boys she keeps wrapped around her finger can she convince to kill him? As always, whatever Katrina wants, Katrina gets - even if it means murder.

“Told in a series of flashbacks, with family, friends, police and lovers chipping in with their versions of events, Paul Goldman’s Suburban Mayhem is a swift-paced true-crime soap opera, laced with razor-edged black humour. Inspired in true tabloid nature by the number of crimes in which parents were the victims of their children, bad seed Katrina is emblematic of all sorts of negative currents running through Western society - lawless youth, widespread cynicism and self-absorption.” (Colin Geddes)

See also:
	Boarding Gate		The Devil Dared Me To
	Em4Jay		Eye in the Sky
	Flower of Seduction		Go in Peace Jamil
	JAR CITY		Just Another Love Story
	A Man’s Job		WWW: What a Wonderful World