Review of The Killer Inside Me (2010) by Archibald T — 22 Mar 2011

Sheriff Bob Maples gives Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford an assignment. A prostitute needs to leave the town of Century City or else be put in jail for, well, prostitution. Seems like an easy job. Knocking on the door reveals her. A beautiful young woman named Joyce. Answering the door in her lingerie. She isn't too happy about him telling her that she needs to move away or else. Slapping him across the face doesn't sit well for him. He rushes toward her pinning her to the bed, rolling her over, ripping her panties off, removing his belt and begins spanking her. Strangely, Lou appears to have done this before.

Joyce slapping him across the face has awaken something in Lou that he's kept away since his childhood. A woman, I think it was his father's housekeeper or stepmother, use to molest Lou. She'd tell him to hit her and spank her which is where he get his sadomasochistic tendencies. When he was a teen he later molested a young girl for which his brother took the fall for later on. So far up to, I guess, this point in Lou's life he's been nothing more but a boring, witless, regular, every day guy.

Lou and Joyce carry on an extreme sexual relationship. Mostly with him spanking her or asphyxiating her to an orgasm. Stuff like that. Meanwhile, as this happens, Lou carries on another relationship with a schoolteacher named Amy. You could pretty much tell that Lou is playing both sides, but it's until the death of Lou's brother when things get out of hand.

Elmer Conway is the son of Chester who is big in the construction business. Elmer has been carrying on an affair with Joyce, but while Lou's brother got out of jail he was working in construction. While on a job, Lou's brother died. Lou suspected it to be murder. He points the finger at Elmer and sees an interesting blackmail scenario by exposing the affair.

So, Joyce and Lou set it up one night. Elmer is to bring the money to pay them off, but something happens. Lou for some reason beats the shit out of Joyce. It's a particularly violent assault on her beautiful face. Very graphic. What Lou has done is double cross Joyce and when Elmer arrives he shoots him to make it look like a murder suicide between two lovers. Simple enough. Not really.

Events transpire for Lou to dodge the questioning and to cover his tracks in the process. Howard Hendricks is on the case and Joe Rothman is looking into investigating more into the Conway's since Joe believes it as well that Lou's brother was too murdered.

The film grows tiresome when not much is revealed to us about Lou himself. When he was molested is only glossed over and we never know up to the point he first meets Joyce if he's ever killed anyone else. His relationship with Amy blossoms. She's okay with the spanking he makes her endure. Life seems to be kind of on track until a Bum blackmails him sending him into a tailspin of having to kill Amy. He doesn't want to, but he just feels like he has to which doesn't make sense if you're sane.

The film's ending could be either a delusion on Lou's part or it could have actually happened. Hard to tell. One other movie that comes to mind when I was watching this was 'The Minus Man' with Owen Wilson as a nice guy type for whom you'd never think would be a killer in disguise. What made that film disturbing was how quietly creepy the character was than the in your face brutality the one in this film was portrayed.

If I had to give it points it would go to Affleck and Hudson. Affleck does a great job at playing a guy who gradually returns to his sadistic ways. Hudson literally out does Alba. Not only in the acting department, but also making her character feel more like an actual woman in the 1950's. Alba was really misplaced in this entire film. She's too modern for this material. Somebody like Laura Harring from Mulholland Drive would have been PERFECT!

The violence is excessive toward to the two women: Amy and Joyce. It is hard to sit through, but it beats nothing to the Monica Bellucci rape scene in Irreversible. Still, however, it's pretty violent. So Beware.

Overall, a mildly cohesive study, if a bit vague, of a man who is a killer.