NEWS – Los Angeles Times Defends The Killer Inside Me

Published on: 1st February, 2010

NEWS - Los Angeles Times Defends The Killer Inside Me  | read this item

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Those who were following the events at Sundance this weekend may well be aware of the controversy that has surrounded the screening of a little picture called The Killer Inside Me. Based on the pulp novel by the late Jim Thompson (who worked with the legendary Stanley Kubrick on the war classic Paths of Glory) and directed by notorious British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (whose 2004 feature 9 Songs included explicit scenes of real sex), it was hardly surprising that the movie caused something of a stir when it was shown at the Eccles Theater on Sunday.

The novel, first published in 1952, told of Lou Ford, the twenty-nine year old sheriff of a small American town, who appears to lead a respectable and quiet life. But his dark secret life includes a perverted relationship with a stripper, Joyce Lakeland, and the sexual abuse of a young girl for which his brother, Mike, was convicted instead. Arguably the American Psycho of the 1950s, the book was praised by Kubrick and was eventually adapted into a feature by Burt Kennedy in 1976.

The screening of the movie, which stars Casey Afflek (as Lou) and Jessica Alba (Joyce), caused several walkouts at Sundance and resulted in a rather uncomfortable Q&A for the director. Regardless, IFC Films (who purchased Lars von Trier’s equally shocking Antichrist last year) bought the rights to the movie at the event for approximately $1m.

Despite many critics reacting to the crowd’s hostility by slating in the movie in their reviews, the Los Angeles Times has jumped to its defense, with Mark Olsen stating that ‘Affleck showcases his uncanny ability to project a person holding two thoughts in his head at once, as he often gives away nothing in his face to convey the firestorm obviously raging in his soul. As he did in Jesse James, where he also played a man named Ford, there is a queasiness behind every smile and a disconcerting aggression to his politely placid demeanor.’

The writer of the article also comments on the craft of the movie: ‘The Killer Inside Me is in moments devastatingly brutal, but it is also thoughtful, stylish, at times dryly funny, disconcertingly sexy and provides a modulated, slowly enveloping take on constructing an interior psychology on film. Like the period rockabilly and Western swing music that punctuates the movie – songs of romance and desperation, dance tunes about death – The Killer Inside Me straddles the fence between darkness and light, sex and violence, love and hate, capturing the inferno burning inside the mind of one man.’

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