THE KILLER INSIDE ME Discussion

I'm kinda surprised that there's no mention of the women's performances, since I suspect many of us would expect Alba, in particular, to be a weak link. I presume they must at least be good enough not to distract from Lou's story.

Looking forward to Affleck, though-- certainly not what I ever pictured Lou to be, but I can see him pulling it off.

I just read Thompson's Wild Town, which transplants deputy sheriff Lou Ford to a Texas oil boom town and, incredibly, makes him the hero (minus the homicidal urges and with a less sordid back story). Fiancee Amy Standish also has a significant role. It would be cool if Winterbottom followed up with Affleck and Alba returning, but I don't think Killer will make any money and I don't think audiences would swallow the inversion of Ford's character in a sequel. The kind of thing only Thompson could get away with.

This is on demand now!

I can't say I was really looking forward to this after seeing the trailer. But suddenly I'm thrilled to be able to see it On Demand. Saw AntiChrist that way. Now if only I could see every new release On Demand.

Saw this last weekend. For all the hullabaloo about the violence, it really wasn't that bad. The murder scenes come across as quite sad and tragic rather than disturbing. Whilst beating Jessica Alba to death Lou Ford keeps telling her he loves her and it's sad because he can't seem to stop his compulsion to kill. Affleck is excellent in this movie and it would be great to see him play a villain in the next Batman flick.

This is a great little noir film that gets under your skin and stays there. See it!

I really enjoyed this. Enjoyed is probably the wrong word, but I thought it was great.

Affleck doesn't seem quite right, but somehow he's still terrifically unsettling. The movie is appropriately brutal. As tough as Alba's beating scene is to watch, it's Kate Hudson's that really got to me. It's probably less violent to some degree, but the sounds she's making on the floor, and what he does to her dress and the way he just sits there....god, I got the creeps.

I didn't mind the way the last act meanders. I thought it felt appropriately Thomson-esque (although I have to confess to not reading this particular novel). I really didn't like the music. Sometimes I thought they were making it a bit too jokey. There's plenty of black humor here, especially in the final operatic moments. Playing "Shame, Shame On You" while they all burn in hell seems a bit much. The Opera stuff was a bit better. I assumed that was a character trait from carried over from the novel.

Pullman's first scene was laughably bad! The car ride conversation was better, but what the hell? I didn't know where he was coming from with that at all...

How'd this get moved here? I thought it would be in Current Releases.

Anyway, really good movie. Not genius, but very solid. I hope Kate Hudson takes more character actor and supporting work, because I liked her in this for the first time in years. Casey Affleck does a solid job alternating between the charming and the psychotic. It's funny, because while the thing is unsettling and violent, the scenes that really got to me were when he burns the bum's palm and then when he confesses to the kid in the jail cell. Affleck is just mesmerizing in that latter scene; whoever said Nolan should consider him for a Batman movie is right on the money.

This was also a gorgeous looking movie -- I like Moriarty's line about it being a movie whose vision of the 50s is made up of our "shared cultural touchstones." I wonder how much of that has to do with Winterbottom being a Brit.

Parker, since we did this for An Education, what's your thinking about the ending? I couldn't tell how much of it was Lou Ford's fantasy of going out on his own terms, and how much of it was real, especially with Alba showing up alive. My first thought was that the reason the Sheriff killed himself was he had guilt over lying to Lou, and then was betrayed when he learned that Lou was insane, but since the movie's from his perspective (like American Psycho), I guess he could be making it up.

I also think this makes a good companion to No Country for Old Men, as both have to do with the 'transition' between understandable murder and the unblinking 'evil' of a sociopath, especially as it relates to our culture. Winterbottom doesn't really beat you over the head with it, but there are a lot of little things throughout that relate to the fact that the world is changing around these characters.

And Bill Pullman is so bad it loops around to being good again, even though I didn't have a single fucking clue what he was talking about.

I don't know about the book, but I read the ending as fantasy... if my memory isn't completely shitted up, when he's sitting on that chair at the end doesn't he have a razor? I assumed that what played out was what he was imagining would be a good way to go out whereas the reality was altogether more mundane.

I mean, her turning up really nailed it on the noggin that it was all in his for me... though I could be completely wrong in terms of how faithful this ending is to the book.

Agreed about Pullman's bizarro appearance... he was so shit it was funny.

I really don't know about the ending, but i think that's kind of the point. It all builds to this incredible grand-guignol finish that's completely over the top. It wouldn't be the first time a Thompson work finished with hell literally on earth. And from what I understand, the movie is fairly faithful to the novel.

I guess it's possible that it's all in his head, but I don't think we're supposed to know for certain. That the possibility is there for it to be real (or "real-ish")is what Thompson wants us to consider, just like we're supposed to be intrigued by the violence Ford is flirting with and eventually succumbs to throughout the whole film. In Thompson's mind, the ending is the end result of giving into that violence, one way or another.

Just watched this and thought it was a great adaptation to the novel. It's been a few years since I read the novel, but if I remember right Alba's character does survive at the end. However, everyone doesn't blow up in a fireball.

In regards to Pullman's character, he was intentionally overacting the way a typical slimeball defense attorney would to get Ford discharged out of the hospital as soon possible.

I appreciated the last third of the movie, as the scenes involving the complete unraveling of Lou Ford's mind (chasing after the hobo and his subsequent stay in the mental hospital) play out just as I imagined them while reading the novel.

It's a shame that this film didn't receive more recognition.

This misses Thompson's tone entirely. The novel is actually funny. In one scene, Ford intentionally wears down the local diner owner with his slow-witted sheriff act, a long list of boring platitudes. It's supposed to be played for laughs, but you wouldn't know it from Winterbottom's interpretation.

Ford himself is all wrong. The guy in the novel makes a clear distinction between his public and private selves. What the public sees is a folksy and cheerfully stupid deputy sheriff who can't keep his mouth shut. Affleck plays the private self for two hours, and it's one-note dour.

Not very good at all, and so completely lacking in humor that it becomes depressing rather than chilling. On a par with the misguided Stacy Keach version.

I found the ending to be pretty funny, but the movie does take itself a little too seriously. I imagine they had a hard time keeping the books tone while also keeping the brutal violence. The flack they got for the violence would be ten times worse if the rest of the movie was seen as something of a joke. It would probably make the thing a lot more interesting, though.