Ok, my favourite movie blog is going to morph slightly into a film review for this post. Last night I watched The Killer Inside Me. I read the original novel by Jim Thompson a few years ago and found it compelling . However, the film is something else. And I don't mean in a good way. If you are not familiar with the story, here goes: In the West Texas of the early 50s, a young deputy sherriff named Lou Ford is a pillar of the small community he serves. His father was a well respected doctor and the local townspeople (bar tenders, newspapermen and construction workers) all treat him with respect and admiration. But little do they know he is, in fact, a violent schizophrenic psychopath who manages to conceal this beneath a veneer of respectability. It all starts when he encounters a prostitute named Joyce who he falls into a complicated, violent affair with. Between them they come up with a plan to blackmail the son of a local construction magnate called Chester Conway who was responsible for Lou's brothers death a few years earlier. Joyce is also sleeping with Conway's son. They bribe him but when he arrives, Lou kills both him and Joyce and takes the money. Anyway, things escalate further, more murders are carried out and eventually Lou is found out.
The book is a gripping, suspenseful, tightly coiled work of pulp fiction. The reason it works is because you are never sure whether what Lou is describing has actually happened. The chapters flit between his normal, exterior personality and his deranged one. It's similar to both Psycho and American Psycho - you're never completely sure if the protagonist is actually committing the murders. The film does away with all that mystery and shows Lou (a steely, calculated performance by Casey Affleck) killing his victims so you know that it's him. Toward the end of the film, when he finally gets arrested, there's no sense of shock or surprise. It's a bit of an anti-climax.
The film is also mysogynistic beyond words. I've never seen a film show such gruesome, horrific violence towards women. The scene where Lou beats Joyce to a pulp is unwatchable. It goes on for what seems an eternity, he just keeps repeatedly punching her until her face no longer looks human. Similarly, when he kills his wife Amy, the violence is shocking. He kicks her in the stomach twice and then leaves her in agony on the floor. He covers her face with her dress so he doesn't have to see her pained expression. It's truely distressing, yet there doesn't seem to be any explanation behind any of it. The scenes showing violence against women last longer than any of the scenes where men are killed or beaten. The men are shot once and are dead. The women are beaten cruelly and lengthily. I've never seen a film like it and nor should I wish to.
If you take away the violence, there's still nothing in it that would make you want to watch it again. It is so bleak, so empty of any kind of direction or meaning. If I were going to make a film out of this book, I would have made it as if it had been made in the '50s, when the book was written. The whole contemporary, modern atmosphere does it no favours at all.
It's also bizarre to me that the two women are played by Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson - who are both most well known for starring in mainstream romantic comedies. I understand that Reese Witherspoon and Maggie Gyllenhaal were pencilled in originally. I can understand why they refused - they are both intelligent and fine actresses who I can't imagine would have agreed to star in such submissive roles. Neither of the women in the film are ever shown outside of the bedroom. They exist purely as Lou's sexual slaves. When Lou beats Joyce before making love to her, she enjoys it. Even at the end, after surviving the beating, she still tells him she loves him. The representation of women in this film is abhorrent.
The only good thing about this film is the music - a great hillbilly soundtrack featuring Shame on You by Spade Cooley, which plays during the closing scene. Everything else is utterly forgettable.
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