Weekend with a killer
I spent the bank holiday weekend with a Texan killer from the fifties. After watching the intensely claustrophobic trailers for Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me I ran to Foyles to read the book.
The novel slips inside the head of small town Sherriff and calculating killer, Lou Ford. The reader is with Lou every step of the way as he commits a series of brutal and savage murders. The film isn’t out on general release yet, but some critics are noting the extreme violence toward women portrayed in the film (as it is in the novel).
The two female murders are slow, intense beatings. The male murder is quick, without malice. It reminds me of similar comments about American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis), fourteen deaths – seven women, brutally and slowly, seven men, quickly and cleanly.
The Killer… protagonist does reveal a hatred for women, it’s integral to his actions and the story. This isn’t glamorising the abuse of women, it’s just documenting it through fiction. Besides, there are far more terrible examples of what women are subjected to in the news.
The trailer for the film, that started my quest for the novel, is incredibly well put together. The scenes that are shown are pivotal to the plot, yet the viewer has no idea of their significance yet. My advice would be to watch the trailer, read the novel, then see the film, all with great haste.
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