Sundance Shocker 'The Killer Inside Me' Lands at IFC

I didn't expect a controversy-free debut for The Killer Inside Me at Sundance, and it sure didn't get one. If you saw the lengthy trailer (more of a sizzle reel, truthfully), then you know the very dark film noir was sure to cause a commotion. Rough, rough sex, maybe even hateful sex, highlighted the video, and we saw Jessica Alba being punched and slapped by an angry Casey Affleck, among other notably intense scenes. Anne Thompson wrote about the brouhaha on her Indiewire blog, which stems from the scenes mentioned above. One of Alba's beatings apparently leaves her face resembling that of a bloody stew. Nice. And then there's the bit about Alba leaving the screening halfway through, though her reps insist she's proud of the movie and will continue to support it. At the Q & A, Thompson writes that director Michael Winterbottom was hit by this line of questioning right out of the gate: “I don’t understand how Sundance could book this movie,” huffed one angered female viewer. “How dare you? How dare Sundance?” Uh-oh. Now, the film is based on a Jim Thompson novel, and it's a very hard read, precisely because of this kind of contend, which was not acceptable material in the early 1950s. Winterbottom tried deflecting the criticism of his movie, which Thompson reports is "his best-looking and most controlled." "The violence is shocking in the book and it’s shocking in the film,” Winterbottom sad at the Sundance screening. “It’s not a police procedural. The story is being told by someone who’s crazy. The story is the way he tells it and sees it, not the way it happened. The film has no sense of pleasure in the violence.” Of which there is apparently quite a bit. But it isn't violence in the way that most movies portray it. It is clearly the treatment of women that is causing the outcry. "The implication is that we should not be allowed to show violence against women. No one is encouraging that. There’s a lot of violence against women in the world," Winterbottom told Thompson after the event. "You can show men and women being killed, and as long as it’s entertaining, it’s ok. And if it’s brutal, we don’t want to see it.” The last movie to spark this kind of festival reaction was Antichrist, but that didn't deter IFC Films from picking it up for distribution. Surprise, surprise: IFC is back in the controversy business. Deadline Hollywood writes that IFC acquired the film for a late summer-early fall release "after a marathon negotiation session" that resulted in a $1 - $2 million deal. That doesn't sound like much, but remember, the film has already been produced, so IFC just has to put it in theaters and promote it, or at least share in some of the promotion costs. Because of its content, I don't expect a 3,000-theater run for Killer, but IFC has played around with the VOD format before, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the plan this time around.

Comments

[Lisa]

I didn't see any reporting of Casey Affleck even being there. Since this is his first film out since 2007, I take it to mean he doesnt support the film.

[Chad]

how can you tease after you say that, then not leave a trailer for it. Violence and sex, that's what my generation is all about lol