Hey folks, Harry here... Saw my first SXSW movie yesterday, I was invited to check out a tech screening for Friedkin's KILLER JOE, since I'm going to be moderating the post-film Q&A Saturday night at the Paramount - and really wanted to see the film and have time to think about it before the event.
This is a crime film. One of them... kinda like DOUBLE INDEMNITY stories, except taking place in a trailer park with a crazed barknuts pitbull yanking at a chain. Set up in the Dallas/Ft Worth area of Texas, this film deals with drug dealing, professional killing, Life Insurance scams and oddly enough.. LOVE.
There's also more BUSH in this film than anything you've seen in a theater recently that wasn't made in the Seventies. Gina Gershon's character is introduced that way. It feels like a film you'd watch with BLOOD SIMPLE. That hot and sweaty Texas brand of crime noir. Double crosses, general stupidity and sex.
Matthew is pretty great as KILLER JOE, Thomas Haden Church plays a great sad sack, Gina - smoking hot as usual. Emile Hirsch is probably the acting shout out of the film, but Juno Temple is someone I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Her innocence & where she takes it in this film. It's just the sort of intense performance that I love seeing in a Friedkin film.
This is going to play very well at the Paramount Theater Saturday night!
