The Killer Inside Me

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, USA, 2010, 120 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Following in the footsteps of Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway, 1972), Alain Corneau (Série noire, 1979), and Stephen Frears (The Grifters, 1990), Michael Winterbottom decided to go with one of Jim Thompson’s pulp classics. Written in 1952, Thompson’s novel The Killer inside Me was first adapted for the screen in 1976 when Burt Kennedy cast Stacy Keach in the starring role. It is perhaps the author’s most personal work in that his Oklahoma sheriff of a father escaped to Mexico after being accused of embezzlement. Even here, the hero of the story is a corrupt sheriff from West Texas, or more precisely his deputy, the seemingly friendly and universally liked Lou Ford. Indeed, the fact that he gets along well with a wide variety of crooks provokes the suspicion that he’s a bit too goodhearted, but of course the reality is different. Lou’s got lots of problems: women, law enforcement, and an ever-growing pile of murder victims in his jurisdiction. Soon enough Lou himself comes under suspicion and his true identity finally comes out. But of course in Jim Thompson’s dark universe, little, if anything, is ever what it seems....

About the director

Michael Winterbottom (b. 1961, Blackburn, England) studied English at Oxford University, and film at Bristol University and London Polytechnic. He began in television as an editor, documentarist (e.g. two documentaries on Ingmar Bergman), and director. His dramatic debut Go Now (1995) screened at Karlovy Vary, as did many of his subsequent, generically diverse movies: an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure (Jude, 1996), the faux documentary 24 Hour Party People (2001), the immigrant tale In This World (2002), the sci-fi flick Code 46 (2003), the love story 9 Songs (2004), the docudrama Road to Guantanamo (2006), and the adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s hilarious novel Tristram Shandy as A Cock and Bull Story (2006).