''Suburban Mayhem'' is a 2006

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

film directed by Paul Goldman, written by Alice Bell, and produced by Leah Churchill-Brown, with Jan Chapman as executive producer. It features an ensemble cast including

Emily Barclay Emily Barclay (born 24 October 1984) is an English-born, New Zealander and Australian AFI award winning actress. Career Emily Barclay was born in Plymouth to a General practitioner and a landscape designer, and raised in Auckland, New Zealan ...

, Michael Dorman, Anthony Hayes, Robert Morgan, and

Genevieve Lemon Genevieve Lemon (born 21 April 1958) is an Australian actress and singer who has appeared in a number of Australian television series and international film, including a frequent collaboration with Jane Campion for Academy Award-winning ''The P ...

. It was filmed in Sydney and

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

, Australia. ''Suburban Mayhem'' had its world premiere at

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...

and its North American premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

. It was released shortly after in Australia on October 26, 2006, with subsequent releases around the world.

Plot

Katrina (

) is a 19-year-old single mother who is planning to murder. Katrina lives in a world of petty crime, fast cars, manicures and fornication. A master manipulator of men, she lives at home with a deadbeat father in suburban Golden Grove. Katrina will stop at nothing, including murder, to get what she wants. When her father threatens to contact Social Services and take away her child, Katrina sets in motion a plan to wreak suburban mayhem that will leave a community in shock and make Katrina infamous in a way even she never dreamed of. It is loosely based upon a series of notorious murders by Mark Valera, who killed

Frank Arkell Francis Neville (Frank) Arkell (13 September 193526 June 1998) was an Australian politician. Arkell was a long-serving Lord Mayor of Wollongong and an independent member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Wollongong. In 1 ...

and David O'Hearn, and upon his sister Belinda van Krevel and her then-partner Keith Schreiber, who killed Jack van Krevel.

Cast

as Katrina *

Michael Dorman Michael Dorman (born 26 April 1981) is a New Zealand actor, best known for his starring roles as NASA astronaut Gordo Stevens in the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series ''For All Mankind'' and as John Tavner in the comedy-dram ...

as Rusty * Anthony Hayes as Kenny * Robert Morgan as John *

as Dianne * Laurence Breuls as Danny *

Steve Bastoni Steve Bastoni (born 4 March 1966) is an Award winning, Italian-born Australian actor. He became a household name in Australia for his role as Constable Yannis 'Angel' Angelopoulos in ''Police Rescue'' and as Steve Parker in ''Neighbours''. H ...

as Robert Andretti *

Mia Wasikowska Mia Wasikowska ( ; born 25 October 1989) is an Australian actress. She made her screen debut on the Australian television drama '' All Saints'' in 2004, followed by her feature film debut in ''Suburban Mayhem'' (2006). She first became known to ...

as Lilya

Festivals

* 2006 –

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

–

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

* 2006 – Australia – Melbourne International Film Festival * 2006 –

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

–

Awards

Won: * 2006 Australian Writers Guild: Best Original Feature Film (Alice Bell). * 2006

Inside Film Awards The Inside Film Awards (now known as the IF Awards) is an annual awards ceremony and broadcast platform for the Australian film industry, developed by the creators of Inside Film Magazine, Stephen Jenner and David Barda, and originally produced fo ...

: Best Actress (

), Best Music, Best Editing. * 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards: Best Original Music Score (

Mick Harvey Michael John Harvey (born 29 August 1958) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The ...

) * 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards: Best Lead Actress (

) * 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards: Best Supporting Actor ( Anthony Hayes) Nominated: * 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards: Best Direction (Paul Goldman), Best Supporting Actress (

), AFI Young Actor Award (Mia Wasikowska), Best Original Screenplay (Alice Bell), Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound. * 2006

: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Script.

Reception

Box office

''Suburban Mayhem'' grossed $342,600 at the box office in Australia.

Critical reception

''Suburban Mayhem'' has received mixed reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has a "rotten" rating of 20%, based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. Film scholar Bruno Starrs has critiqued the film with regard to Barbara Creed's notion of the "maternal feminine" monster.Starrs, D. Bruno (2006) The maternal monster in 'Suburban Mayhem'. Metro Magazine (151):pp. 22–2

/ref>

References

External links

* *
''Suburban Mayhem''
at the National Film and Sound Archive {{AACTAAward BestMusicScore 2000-2019 2006 films 2006 comedy-drama films Australian comedy-drama films Australian black comedy films Australian independent films Films set in Australia Films shot in Australia 2006 comedy films 2006 independent films 2000s English-language films