KILLER JOE directed by William Friedkin (USA, 2011)
There is something sick and depraved at the heart of this movie, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
As the director of bona fide classics The French Connection and The Exorcist, William Friedkin has nothing to prove but it is as if he still wants to show audiences that he still has the power to shock and outrage audiences. It is the director’s second collaboration with screenwriter Tracy Letts after 2006’s Bug (which I haven’t seen).
About a third of the way in, you get the notion that the film is meant to be a kind of Southern Gothic black comedy but the noir-ish humor falls flat unless you’re the type who finds the exploitation and humiliation of women amusing or get off on watching repeated images of folks getting their heads beaten to a pulp.
