The Killer Inside Me (2010 film)
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The Killer Inside Me is a 2010 American film adaptation of the 1952 novel of the same name by Jim Thompson. The film is directed by Michael Winterbottom and stars Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, and Jessica Alba. At its release, it was instantly reviled for its graphic depiction of violence especially as it was directed toward women. At its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, Jessica Alba left the theater half way through the screening and when the film was over a viewer stood and called to the director, who was in the audience, saying: "I don't understand how Sundance could book this movie! How dare you? How dare Sundance?" The violence has colored most critical reviews of the film ever since.
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Plot
Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that he is nevertheless ordinary and dependable. Nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": He is a violent sociopath with a taste for rape and murder. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the fall for his crimes. But now the sickness that has been lying dormant for years is about to surface again and the consequences are brutal and devastating.
Cast
- Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, a West Texas deputy sheriff and serial killer.
- Kate Hudson as Amy Stanton, Ford's schoolteacher girlfriend.
- Jessica Alba as Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute.
- Ned Beatty as Chester Conway
- Tom Bower as Sheriff Bob Maples
- Elias Koteas as Joe Rothman
- Simon Baker as Howard Hendricks, a county attorney looking to expose Lou as the killer.
- Bill Pullman as Billy Boy Walker
- Brent Briscoe as Bum / The Stranger / Visitor
- Matthew Maher as Deputy Jeff Plummer
- Liam Aiken as Johnnie Papas
- Jay R. Ferguson as Elmer Conway
- Danny Nalley as cab driver
Production
Numerous filmmakers have attempted to adapt Thompson's novel into a film since the mid-1950s. 20th Century-Fox originally optioned the project as a possible starring vehicle for Marilyn Monroe around 1956, with Monroe starring as Joyce Lakeland. Marlon Brando was attached to star as Lou Ford. Elizabeth Taylor was considered at the time for the role of Amy Stanton. After Monroe's unexpected death on August 5, 1962, the project was shelved. A film adaption was eventually made in 1976, with Stacy Keach as Lou Ford and Susan Tyrell as Joyce Lakeland.
In the mid-1980s, there was another attempt to adapt the book into a film, with Tom Cruise as Lou Ford, Brooke Shields as Amy Stanton, and Demi Moore as Joyce Lakeland. The project was shelved. In the mid-1990s, after the success of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino was attached to direct the project. Uma Thurman was set to star as Amy Stanton. Juliette Lewis was considered for the part of Joyce Lakeland and Brad Pitt was attached to star as Lou Ford. This effort fell through after the September 11 attacks, because the film script was too violent. Tarantino scrapped everything and started from scratch. In 2003 Andrew Dominik wrote a highly stylized screenplay, and was at one point to direct it. He hoped the film would star Leonardo DiCaprio as Lou Ford, Charlize Theron as Amy Stanton and Drew Barrymore as Joyce Lakeland. Dominik lost interest in doing a film adaptation of a 1950s novel and instead chose to film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Then Marc Rocco stepped in, and wanted to cast Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, Reese Witherspoon as Amy Stanton and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Joyce Lakeland.
Release
The Killer Inside Me premiered on January 24, 2010 at Sundance Film Festival. In January 2010, IFC Films saved the rights of the film for around $1.5 million and announced the theatrical and VOD platforms release on June 9, 2010. It was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. It is part of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and ran on April 27, 2010. The film had a limited theatrical release starting on June 18, 2010. It was released as a Blockbuster Exclusive DVD and Blu-Ray rental on August 24th, 2010; the official DVD and Blu-Ray were released on September 28, 2010.
Reception
The film received generally mixed reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 55% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 97 reviews, with an average score of 5.6/10. The critical consensus is: "The Killer Inside Me is stylish and beautifully shot, but Michael Winterbottom's distance from his characters robs this often brutally violent film of crucial emotional context."
Winterbottom, attending the film's world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, got an audience member's review before the credits had finished rolling: "I don't understand how Sundance could book this movie! How dare you? How dare Sundance?" Rachel Cooke of The Observer, after describing a "sickeningly protracted" scene from the film in which Joyce is beaten by Lou, said "I was so queasy, I had to go and stand outside. I thought I might actually faint"; she notes that several of the scenes of violence are "so long and so horribly graphic" and points out that "by lingering only over the violence done to women — by contrast, a male character gets to die off camera — he has, I think, ruined his own picture, drawing the audience's attention away both from its exquisite noir mood, and from Affleck's mesmerising performance. The violence is a bloody blot on an otherwise beautiful canvas."
Stephen Dalton, reviewing the film for The Times after it closed the Berlin Film Festival, acknowledged the controversy over the depiction of violence:
- Although Ford's victims include men and women, it is his savage and sustained assaults on female characters that has made The Killer Inside Me controversial. Winterbottom shows these attacks in unflinching detail, a choice some consider unnecessary and exploitative. In fairness, the violence is sparingly used, which only makes it more stomach-churning. And compared to recent Tarantino or Coen brothers bloodbaths, this is restrained stuff. The film's critics, I suspect, have made the classic mistake of confusing content for intent.
Dalton, giving the film four stars out of five, called it a "thoughtful thriller which will bore some viewers with its low-key pacing, while repelling others with its flashes of sickening brutality. But for the less squeamish among us, The Killer Inside Me is an intelligent and gripping take on classic film noir ingredients."
