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Killer Joe is a roller-coaster of a movie. At first it seems like a dark comedy, then a crime drama plot starts to uncover, and by the end it becomes downright terrifying. I'm a sucker for these kinds of movies and Killer Joe absolutely nails everything it goes for. This kind of story couldn't be pulled off without the right director. Thankfully William Friedkin knocks it out of the park. You can smell the white trash emanating from the screen. Every detail of every action is given the right amount of attention; every shot has purpose. Not one second is gone to waste. And in order for a story like this to truly resonate you'd need competent actors, and I don't think you could find a more perfect cast for Killer Joe if you tried. McConaughey is absolutely mesmerizing as this badass detective who's a hit-man on the side. The story revolves around a trailer trash family and their plan to exploit an insurance policy on the husband's ex-wife because the son got wrapped up in a bad drug deal, so they hire Killer Joe to do the job. Little do they know, Killer Joe does not f*ck around.

It's a graphic movie but it's not gratuitous. There's a reason for everything that is shown. And the narrative slowly builds to an explosive climax that leaves you flabbergasted. Seriously, the final scene in this movie which is about 10 minutes long, is absolutely phenomenal. Shocking, riveting, unsettling. Matthew McConaughey is downright villainous in this role. It's hard to call him a "villain" because he's straightforward in his motivations, much like it's hard to call the family the "heroes" because they're a bunch of moronic assholes, except the daughter who just doesn't know any better. The line between good and evil is blurred to the point of nonexistence, with Joe epitomizing this duality being the half detective half gun-for-hire hard-ass that he is. It's quite poetic, really. The characters in this movie are scum, and they all get what's coming to them.

Killer Joe is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is scatterbrained. It's entirely focused and cohesive. All the genres it glosses over fit right into this depraved story arc, and it grips you to the screen from beginning to end. This movie certainly isn't for everyone, but if you can stomach Killer Joe, you won't soon forget it.

For anyone who has seen any old Matthew McConaughey films, this is not his standard role. He ain't the blue eyed hero or the RomCom interest as his main part in this dark film noir.

Based in the American South, we have one dysfunctional family who are plotting to kill the mother for the insurance money. Into this they call in 'Killer Joe' to do the job.

It's a nasty movie, and treats the characters like trash. A very cynical outlook on humanity and you may not stomach all that happens. The sexual politics aren't going to please many people, and it is a discomforting film.

Yet it is still very well written, and uncomfortably involving. The acting is top notch and the pace is well done with good twists.

Before you watch it, if you've not got a strong stomach for films, then approach this one with caution. Not one for everyone, but still a very good film.

Texan drug-dealer Chris (Emile Hirsch) lands himself in hot water, owing money to a gang of big-time criminals. After being refused money by his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), Chris comes up with a plot to have his mother murdered, collecting the life insurance money that he believes will pass to his sister Dottie (Juno Temple). To do the deed, they hire police detective and part-time contract killer 'Killer' Joe (Matthew McConaughey). Unable to pay his fees up front, Joe decides to take Dottie as collateral, who he asks to spend the night with, until the debt is paid.

Killer Joe's poster tagline reads 'A totally twisted, deep-fried, Texas redneck trailer park murder story', and really, that's precisely what it is. The central families sheer utter repulsiveness becomes the comedy vein that prevails throughout the plot, as we are greeted by Sharla (Gina Gershon), Ansel's second wife, opening her trailer door to reveal her hairy bush to a disgusted Chris. But Chris's loud-mouthed ineptness, Ansel's zombie-like idiocy, and Sharla's blatant man-eating are neutralised by Juno Temple's strange, quirky presence, and her submissive relationship with Killer Joe that is as unsettling as it is oddly sweet. It's a quite amazing performance, and her scenes with an almost equally impressive McConaughey provide the film's highlights.

If the film has a definite strong point, it is in the performances. While the aforementioned Temple and McConaughey will steal the plaudits, Haden Church's dumb, lurch-like performance reminds us why he was Oscar- nominated for the sublime Sideways (2004), providing a sympathetic character amongst Chris's waster and Sharla's trailer trash whore. It's a shame that the plot can't match the performances, and although the story takes a back-seat to the mish-mash of human monsters, this really could have been a whole lot more. This is Coen Brothers territory, taking place in that sweaty world of the Deep South, full of smoky bars, rusty trailers, cowboy hats, motorbikes and overweight, middle-aged men in vests, a modern-day noir world ripe with possibilities, one that I feel has been slightly wasted here.

But if you've ever wondered if a film's climatic scene would ever involved a woman performing fellatio on a chicken drumstick, then here is your answer. Killer Joe's final frames will undoubtedly divide audiences between those who get director William Friedkin's intentions to take things to Jacobian absurdity, to those who will feel it as a silly contradiction to the film early, more subtle black humour. It's a splurge of extreme, uncomfortable violence with a sprinkling of farce, as the true psychological unbalance of Killer Joe becomes evident. Myself, I found it rather hilarious, and it managed to cement what is really an average film with only spatters of inspiration into my memory.

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You will have to look hard and long for a film that's as quirky as Killer Joe. William Friedkin must have been inspired by the equally quirky Fargo in doing this film.

Both films are about people who get into criminal enterprises that really don't have the talent. Bill Macy decides that good way out of his financial difficulty is to arrange to have his wife kidnapped and his rich father-in-law extorted for the ransom in Fargo. In Killer Joe, young Emile Hirsch goes into the drug dealing business and owes some big bucks to some nasty people. So a quick way to some ready cash is to kill his mother and get her insurance policy via the backdoor as his sister Juno Temple is the beneficiary.

Major difference between Fargo and Killer Joe is that Macy and his family are good middle class Minnesotans. Hirsch, Temple, their father Thomas Haden Church and his second wife Gina Gershon are Texas lowlife trailer park trash. The first wife, the mother of Hirsch and Temple is Julia Adams and truth be told no one is really going to mourn the passing of this one in any event.

Hirsch even has a hit man picked out. It's Matthew McConaughey who is a Dallas police detective and doubles as a hit man on the side. He's both mysterious and dangerous and gradually inserts himself into their family group, especially since he demands as a retainer the nubile body of Juno Temple in lieu of the cash they don't have until a settlement comes forth.

Just like Fargo everything and anything that can go wrong does with this foolproof scheme thought of by a fool. If I had to single anyone out in the cast it's Emile Hirsch who is a degenerate and a lowlife, but still you feel a bit of sympathy for him because he's so pathetically dumb. And McConaughey in the title role will also make you take notice.

Killer Joe while not as good as Fargo is still good enough to savor. I agree with another reviewer who says you will either like it or hate it, but won't be indifferent.

Just off watching this last night at TIFF 2011, I am still reeling from what I actually witnessed on the screen.

First of all, where has Gina Gershon been?? Her character was so believable in this, I almost forgot she was in Showgirls :)

I could say the same thing about nearly every other character as well. They all have such subtle personalities, it seems as though they are playing themselves.

As for the plot, it is somewhat standard fare, as the trailer could easily giveaway, however it's how it progresses and pans out, is the most interesting aspect of the film.

There are a few scenes which some will find very hard to watch (in fact, during one now-notorious scene, dozens of people left the screening I was at), but if you stick with them, you will be in for a... treat? I'm not so sure, but you will have never seen anything like it, nor will you.

For the cast's performances alone, I highly recommend this film, but if you are feint of heart, or become queasy at the site of blood, maybe skip it.

The end was very unrealistic in my perspective. Also, it's an open ending. I don't really like that. But perhaps this is very art house.

This is about... hmm... about a father and son who want to kill the mother of the family to collect the insurance money from her death, and hire a killer (also a cop) who decides to take 'as a retainer' the younger sister of the family while they come up with the cash to pay him. It's always refreshing when your first though when this ends is - where did THAT come from?

By far this is Matthew McConaughey's most WTF-bad-ass performance, with touches of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and even Anton Chigurh. He's such a fantastic, seductive, snake-like villain here, because after the first couple of times you see him, you're not quite sure where he'll go. Friedkin takes this material into some VERY dark places (I imagine based off of the play, once again like 'Bug' from Tracy Letts), and if you aren't offended after the first ten minutes, you just gotta hang on for the rest of the ride. It's a twisted-f**k film-noir comedy of horrors where morality is so screwed that you have to laugh to not recoil from where it goes ultimately.

The ending had me howling with laughter, recoiling in pain, and just stunned by McConaughey suddenly shattering an image he's built up for himself over the past fifteen years as a rom-com hack. It's his film, along with the unlikely-attractive actress Juno Temple, who has a seduction scene with 'Killer Joe' that is edge-of-your-seat. For those of us sick- bastards looking for something off the wall, it's one of the must-sees of the year. Not as surreal as Blue Velvet, but not as poorly-crafted trash as a Grindhouse movie. It's in an area somewhere in-between, and I can't wait to see it again.

I don't know why I didn't enjoy this more than I did. It seems to have all the right ingredients for a down and dirty post noir with fine performances all round and Friedkin's steady directorial hand. Actually for the most part I was engaged, even if the central premise regarding the life insurance is a little corny and the family just a little too cliché trailer trash. It is tough and it is amusing but as things proceed and begin to get a little silly it is the central performance of Matthew McConaughey, cooling pulling on and off his black leather gloves and giving his stare, that holds this together and hold you in its grip. Towards the end, things change and I can only assume this is the 'fault' of the original stage play, where the high drama might have worked better, within the film it jars and spoils the torrid but believable situation that has developed. There is little development of the characters, which is fine, but when we are asked to suddenly see things so differently, as here at the end, that lack of feeling for the characters matters a lot. So the inconclusive end is a bit of a mess, not to mention the chicken scene and in my view tends to spoil what had been a sensationally good start.

It has been quite some time since a movie has disappointed and disgusted me so much that I was compelled to write a review, but here it is.

Killer Joe is intended to be a basement noir satire, but it fails on almost every count. There's nothing particularly interesting to grab and hold the audience's attention, and right when it picks up around the middle of the movie, it quickly fizzles out. The graphic nudity is just unnecessary and tasteless. The entire plot is bland and subdued, never really evolving past the trailer park.

Inconsistencies abound with Chris nearly getting his face beaten off and he's going around talking with a purple bruise on his face like he fell out of the bed that morning. The beat- down scene by the biker guys was horribly done; the director and editor clearly don't pay attention to detail.

The characters' monotony keep the viewer substantially detached from the characters, which one could argue is with good reason, but someone has to be likable and relatable. The entire time, I was trying to figure out the mystery behind the story, the who did what and why, and then you find out it doesn't exist. By the end of the movie, all I wanted was that 102 minutes and my $4.99 back. What a waste of time... The ONLY positive thing I can say is that the acting was done very well.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I don't think I've ever had a movie offend my sensibilities more, and I'm pretty open-minded and liberal. The ONLY saving grace is McConaughey's stellar performance. If you think this is a mystery suspense about a killer, don't waste your time. If you have 102 minutes to kill and care nothing for character development, plot, or consistency and have a crude sense of humor, then this is right up your alley. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and rent The Bone Collector or Kiss the Girls.

2.0 of 10.0 stars

Famed director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) returns to fine form. Killer Joe, directed by Friedlkin and based on a Tracy Letts story/screenplay, is a fine rendition of the old player getting played murder plot. A vignette of white trash playing out some worst case scenarios with, thankfully, much more photogenic role-players.

The film hangs on the roles of three central characters. The protagonist is a twenty-ish down and out loser named Chris played by Emile Hirsch. Hirsch brings a much grittier less Bohemian Johnny Depp to the table and it works here. His character is smart enough to know he's in deep and empty enough to unwittingly dig his hole ever deeper. His younger sister, Dottie, played by Juno Temple is an extremely unique character. She's both high functioning and almost mentally deficient in her total naiveté' which we are led to think is a mental quirk. She exudes a kind a helplessness with natural beauty that can draw one in. Juno Temple, a relatively new face to American audiences, is quite effective in her portrayal of this integral character. Finally, Matthew McConaughey is perfect in what is actually a supporting role in spite of being the the title character, Killer Joe. McConaughey is in his best element where he is reined in from Hollywood bombast instead dripping with a sleazy lawman/killer persona. These three characters are this movie aptly supported by Gershon's conniving Sharla and Thomas Hayden Church's witless Ansel.

Killer Joe has a down and dirty indie feel which is totally right. The cinematography is immediate and not artsy in any way as if you are clearly seeing something you wish wasn't happening. The final quarter ramps up with a tour 'de force of the macabre supplied by McConaughey's character and taken home with a kind of surprise loose-end "wham-bam" finale. All in all, this really works and separates itself from more typical murder stories, recommended.

This movie is that. You wanna see what's there. When you see what's there, you wanna look away....but you can't. Having said that, I enjoyed it. Messed up, but entertaining.

To start with, I'm a bit of a William Friedkin fan. My all time favourite film is The Exorcist and any other film I see from him gets me slightly worried because I know he has a pretty sketchy body of work.

So I saw the obvious other Friedkin choice and that was The French Connection which I thought was really good. I saw his first play adaptation, Bug, which I thought was pretty special and I started to realise how much he pushes the performances of the actors and this is clearly his priority over any other aspect of film making. Yes it has to be visually appealing but the subject matter of his work is always reliant on performances.

So Killer Joe is another adaptation of a play by Tracy Letts and again has to rely on strong characters with convincing effort to make it come to life. Thankfully Killer Joe delivers on this. In fact, if it wasn't for William Friedkin's ability to add extreme pressure onto the actors by limiting the shooting to two takes per scene, I honestly think it would have lost it's attraction pretty quickly.

The film takes you into the bowels of low-life Texas and really emphasizes the grim reality of life for some unfortunate families. It was surprising to discover a black comedy breeze come over the film and it did come at you pretty surprisingly (especially scenes including Thomas Haden-Church). The cinematography improved on that point by having close up shots of Joe Cooper preparing himself for his first on-screen appearance to the world and blasting mere seconds of TV trash full screen to the audience to make a clear point on red-necks having a low attention span. All of this made me chuckle but it still kept me interested by providing a simple enough plot and letting the great performances carry it along.

Of course there has been a lot of talk regarding the late scenes of the film. Joe's well spoken manner and calm demeanour are pushed to the edge and his rage is unleashed like a shaken coke can that's been opened up. It came as a real shock to me and the suspense was unbearable enough to make your heart pound. Whichever way  it makes you feel at the end, I'm sure you would leave the characters behind knowing it's ended in a really good way and is sure to be discussed well after the credits.

All in all, it's a good piece of work. The effort from the actors far outweigh the visuals which is perfectly fine for a story like this. I'm pretty sure Killer Joe is going to be a reasonable success at the box office and will certainly grab a lot attention when the eventual DVD release comes our way.

The method of this film is meant to be uncomfortable and dark. In every attempt to delude us with witty dialouge, and consistent staging, something truly awful will populate the screen eventually.

Killer Joe is directed by William Friedkin and adapted to screenplay by Tracy Letts from his own play of the same name. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church and Gina Gershon. Music is scored by Tyler Bates and cinematography by Caleb Deschanel. Plot finds Hirsch as Chris Smith, who because he is in severe debt to local thugs, hatches a plan to bump off his waster of a mother and claim the life insurance. Roping in the rest of his trailer dwelling family, he hires Killer Joe (McConaughey), a cop with a sideline in murder, but the Smith's have no idea just what price they will have to pay for his services.

So pulpy, so amusingly dark, Killer Joe is one of those films that will sit at the top of many film fan's best of lists for 2012. Yet if someone came up to me and declared it one of the worst then I certainly will understand. Undeniably it has no widespread appeal, you either get it or you don't, you will either laugh along with Friedkin and his dark observations or you will feel the whole thing is just too ugly to be entertainment. Man it's good to have Friedkin back pushing peoples buttons!

Filmed in Texas in under three weeks, Killer Joe is a film that walks the fine line of misogyny and perversity for perversity's sake. But it never falls over that mark, even though these are scummy characters living in a scummy world, where there's sex and violence, and violent simulated sex and nudity; all of which is cloaked by a sweaty crime gone wrong caper. Much of the film is dialogue driven, rest assured this is very talky, but the director wrings out much tension and salaciousness from every character interaction, the slow-burn approach only heightening the sense of dread. When the finale comes, and it's a cracker-jack ending, there's an almost merciful release that it's all over. These are people you wouldn't want to hang out with ever, only there's Friedkin chuckling away to himself having made us spend an hour and forty minutes with this grime laden crew. If you feel like you need a bath afterwards, that's perfectly natural.

Friedkin has garnered terrific performances from a top line cast. Hirsch (powder-keg), Church (naievity extraordinaire), Temple (virginal piggy in the middle) and Gershon (bold and suspicious), are all giving disturbing credibility to the material, but as good as they are they are trumped considerably by McConaughey. One of the most frustrating actors working today, much like Cage, a ream of poor movies adorn his CV, but once in a while he throws in a performance of such genuine quality that it begs to be acknowledged by his peers. Here as Killer Joe he lays on a Faust like menace, delivering his lines with clinically calm precision, yet still there's a glint in his eye, we know a black heart beats there but he can charm a snake out of its basket, a girl out of her underwear...

Unflinching direction, bravura performances and neo-noir at its near best, one of the best films of 2012 so far. Well, to some of us at least.... 9/10

This comment does not contain any spoilers nor will be very long.

It should be obvious by now that this not a movie for sensible people. It is not a soft movie, with some suspense and some shooting. It is a hard movie to watch with a brutal but simple plot. It is violent and disturbing.

Having said that, the performance from the actors are superb. They make you believe this is a true story, rolling in front of us to witness. The director does a very good job, the cinematography is good and except for one seen all the action is very believable.

Kudos to the writers, the 5 main characters are a particular kind of f****d up person. And this movie is seriously f****d up. An immersive experience that is hard to replicate, it deserves my 7/10.

William Friedkin's Killer Joe proclaims itself as a "totally twisted, deep-fried Texas, redneck trailer park murder story," but to be fair, I'm not sure that is even an accurate summation. Prior to viewing the film, I saw it called everything from, "sick," to "wild," to "weird," to "creepy," to "subversive," to "crazy," to just plain awful, and the only one I can marginally agree with is "weird." This is one of the strangest releases of the year, but I believe "sick" is a huge exaggeration.

I too feel the NC-17 rating this film proudly bears is a bit much. If the film lacked a full frontal Gina Gershon and Matthew McConaughey, I'm sure it would've easily obtained a strong R-rating. The MPAA's bias for sexual content over violent content is wildly known and just the fact that they oversimplify the violence in this film to "a scene of brutality" had me laughing. The film includes some of the most hard-hitting scenes of combat that I've seen in any other film this year, and I'd absolutely love to know just what scene the MPAA was referring to in the first place.

The film centers around the family of twentysomething Chris Smith (played fantastically by Emile Hirsch, assuming the type of role he should continue to seek out), a lowlife drug dealer residing in a Texas trailer park, with his dim-witted father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), his annoying step-mother Sharla (Gina Gershon), and mentally disabled sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Chris has plunged himself into debt with another local dealer, and consults his father about his biological mother and her $50,000 insurance payoff that would be collected by Dottie if she were to die. Chris proposes the idea to hire "Killer" Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a sleazy cop who also works as an assassin, to kill his mother and receive a cut of the insurance money, with him, Ansel, and Sharla getting a good chunk of the profits. However, things become incredibly twisted when Killer Joe begins to fall in love with Dottie, and how the whole family begins on an even steeper downward spiral due to a colossal misunderstanding thanks to Chris.

Every character in the film is despicable in their own way, either by the shameful atrocities they commit or just because of the fact that their motivation is hopelessly self-centered and shockingly shallow and inept. Thankfully, all these subhuman characters are played efficiently by first-rate performers. Emile Hirsch gives a convincing, dignified performance, in possibly one of the most confident screen roles in his adult life. Juno Temple comes off of Dirty Girl, a wonderful coming of age drama, to embody a wildly different yet extremely interesting character, seemingly taken advantage of due to her intelligence or lack thereof. And Thomas Haden Church and Gina Gershon are consistently wonderful in their roles, especially during the climatic half when they appear to be tested as actors all together. But the award-winning performance here goes to McConaughey, who is three for three this year, with roles in Bernie (another film looking to brew the idea of "Texas noir") and Magic Mike buoying him to an actor of near first-rate level. McConaughey's early career was plagued by a number of questionable romantic comedies and the occasional goofy action picture or two, but this year, we've seen nothing but him assuming roles of great confidence, always possessing a firmly dignified slickness and swagger that sets him apart from other actors who have just started recognizing their potential. It would appear that McConaughey just woke up one day and realized that time was fleeting and his real acting career could begin. I never thought I'd say this, but I couldn't see the role of Killer Joe being inhabited by anyone more quirky, unsettling, or thrilling as McConaughey.

There's also something seriously notable about the tension director Friedkin (whose most known work would be the iconic game-changer, The Exorcist) erects during the entire course of Killer Joe. I began to notice it around twenty minutes in, when I felt that I never officially held a comfortable position in my seat, rearranging myself every few minutes. Then, during the scene where Chris is desperately trying to outrun two goons on choppers, taking backroads, alleyways, and literally anything that will get him off the track of the two bikers, I became restless and enthralled. Killer Joe provides us with warm Texas sun, and blends it elegantly with the raw thriller aspects found in a typical film noir picture. The entire climax, taking place in the trailer of the Smith family, is tense and unnerving. This is when I began to realize that this story had been a play prior to a film and that screenwriter Tracy Letts had adapted it so quaintly to film that the transformation was almost not noticeable (even if it would've been, it still wouldn't have been a thing to discourage). This is one of the first, if not the first, time I've watched a film that I didn't know was a play until later in the picture. The fact that this film confidently branches out so far past the idea of a stage-play to the point of being unrecognizable from its roots is a huge accomplishment all on its own.

I close with a forewarning that while I feel that the NC-17 rating Killer Joe received is somewhat questionable, I state with caution that this is a very violent picture, with several sequences of brutality that nearly channel the lines of sadistic depravity. Friedkin, however, is sure to capture it through a lens of style, similar to how Rob Zombie beautifully captured the horrifying deeds of the three despicable murderers in The Devil's Rejects. The film's charm is indescribable and its execution, fearless and zealous, making this one of the most surprising and impressive motion pictures of this year.

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Matthew McConaughey, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon, and Juno Temple. Directed by: William Friedkin.

William Friedkin's career has been up and down most of his career, I guess it's because he refuses to sell-out and go commercial. His most 'Hollywood' film to date has been The Hunted, from 2003, but even that was unusually muted for a film of that type.

His latest effort is yet another adaptation of a Tracy Lett's play (that's a male Tracy), after Bug in 2006, and is choc full of warped, in-your-face sexuality, bloody violence, and humor so dark only the most depraved viewers will find funny. In fact, it's more like a David Cronenberg film than Friedkin.

If you've seen movies like The Acid House, or the 1998 Todd Solondz face-punch Happiness and find them amusing through the gaps in your fingers then you'll be sick enough to fully enjoy Killer Joe.

Matthew McConaughey plays Joe Cooper, an unorthodox Dallas police detective who is 'hired' by petty drug dealer Emile Hirsch to whack his old lady and thus benefit from an insurance policy with his deadbeat dad (Thomas Haden Church in a wonderful performance) and virginal, oddball sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Only they cannot raise the money to pay Joe so he agrees to spend some quality time with Dottie until the policy pays off in waiver of his upfront fee.

It reminded me a lot of an Oliver Stone film called U-Turn, another Texas-based psycho-sexual murder plot filled with heat-waves and perpetual distrust, but was much more enjoyable. The perverse sexuality and dark humor really appeal to a mind like mine, and McConaughey's performance atones for his crimes in various awful romcoms. Joe is a supremely weird but mesmerising character. You never really know what he's going to do next but you can still see the cogs turning as he evaluates every new plot twist. Plus it has full-frontal nudity from Gina Gershon and Juno Temple, which I absolutely do not disagree with.

The film has been slapped with the dreaded NC-17 in the US, which massively limits the amount of theatres that will be showing it. But, indirectly, it will only turn it into a cult film, and thus a bigger success with its intended audience than it otherwise might have been.

I highly recommend that you a part of that audience, it's as far from Hollywood as Friedkin has gotten since Cruising in 1980. Even at the age of 76, he's still on top form.

Edit: I just remembered that U-Turn is actually set in Arizona.

Killer Joe's premise is simple but invigoratingly delivered. Chris Smith (Emile Hirsh) has got himself in trouble with the underworld, if he doesn't produce some cash, he's a dead man. He reasons with his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) that everyone would be happier if his mother Adele was killed, as she has a $50,000 life insurance policy. Considering Adele is his wretched ex-wife, he agrees, as does his girlfriend Sharla (Gina Gershon) and teenage daughter Dottie (Juno Temple). Although Chris doesn't have the money up front, Killer Joe, a Dallas police officer who moonlights as a contract killer, accepts the job on the condition that Dottie serves as sexual collateral.

'Killer Joe' is a fantastic thriller with a warped tension that you don't encounter that often. This film confirms that Matthew McConaughey is on a rapid upward trajectory, he gives an intense performance that's utterly steeped in menace. Though 'Killer' Joe Cooper remains largely restrained and ambiguous throughout the film, each syllable of his southern drawl is loaded with a palpable danger. His performance is captivating; it creates a pervasive, looming sense of dread and depravity that suggests something very bad is going to happen at any moment.

The praise doesn't stop with McConaughey, the whole cast delivers to the best of their ability, it really is an actors' film. If I hadn't researched her, I would have assumed on the credibility of her southern accent that the British Juno Temple was a Texas native. She shows good dramatic range as Dottie, the slightly strange, child-like girl at the centre of the film.

William Friedkin has outdone himself with his second collaboration with writer Tracy Letts; he directs the taut, punchy material perfectly. What's most refreshing is that 77-year-old Friedkin was bold enough to release it uncut with the dreaded NC-17 certificate; he wasn't going to allow himself to sell out.

Seeing as the film's source material is a stage play, it isn't a film of many sets; it seldom leaves the confines of the Smith family's trashy trailer. Much like their first collaboration 'Bug', 'Killer Joe' delivers biting tension and a maelstrom of chaos in a cramped, domestic setting.

I can honestly compliment every area of this film. Tyler Bates' score is brilliantly suspenseful, especially when it introduces Killer Joe, it further adds to his aura of danger. The film is also beautifully shot; it's stunning in high definition.

Despite the menace and darkness of it all, the film is laced with deadpan humour, especially in the film's final quarter, the demented absurdity of which leaves you wondering what the hell just happened!

It's a comedy. A very very black indeed comedy, but a comedy nonetheless. I laughed a lot.

I also squirmed a lot too. For Killer Joe is one of the most uncomfortable films I have sat through in a very long time.

Friedkin and his superlative ensemble cast suck you so deeply into the dead-end lives of the protagonists that, as the friend I saw the film with remarked, you forget that you are watching a movie.

Of course, Friedkin is a past master of cinema verite. As he explained in the Q&A session which followed the screening I attended at the NFT in London, he believes his job as a director is to take a good script, cast it really well, and then create an atmosphere in which the actors can express themselves. I think he achieves that in Killer Joe. Whether you like the result will depend on whether you 'enjoy' watching people with little education, little money and little hope slowly and inexorably destroying themselves.

Friedkin himself said, only half jokingly, that we weren't supposed to 'enjoy' the movie. And while he's probably sort of right, there is much to admire in it. Caleb Deschanel's photography is immaculate. The slow-burn narrative gradually draws you in. All the cast are good, and Thomas Haden Church as the bemused but essentially decent father, Matthew McConaughey as the eponymous lawman turned assassin and Juno Temple as his Lolita are all outstanding.

Temple, daughter of British filmmaker and chronicler of the Sex Pistols Julien Temple, was 22 when she made Killer Joe, but she plays about 13 or 14. (Her exact age is never given, although it is implied that Joe at least thinks of her as being 12.) Which makes the seduction scene involving her and Joe deeply disturbing.

As for Matthew McConaughey, the handsome rom-com star, well, he is a revelation. I suspect at least some sections of his fanbase will be alienated, if not nauseated, by some of his antics in Killer Joe. The Wedding Planner it ain't.

At the end of the Q&A session Friedkin told a joke about an actor playing Hamlet being constantly booed by the audience, who eventually turned on them with the remonstration, "don't blame me, I didn't write this s**t". Bad Boy Billy then gestured at the curtained screen behind him and echoed the punchline about the film we had just watched.

Killer Joe - offensive s**t or neo-noir masterpiece? You decide.