While all kinds of fun, crazy, or plain great movie like The Raid and Cabin in The Woods played at SXSW, no movie managed to top the experience of seeing Killer Joe in a packed, desperately uncomfortable crowd (with McConaughey pretty much dressed as his character not 10 feet away). The film is easy enough to condense, and describing the crazy shit that happens is easy enough, but the actual act of watching this film unfold is totally singular. It’s an abusive, mean, cuttingly hilarious film that already has an earned reputation for being some kind of insane. It’s apparently too much for the MPAA who — even though the film’s most disturbing moments don’t involve nudity or much blood — have given the film an NC-17 and refused to amend.
Fortunately for us, the film was acquired with the stipulation that it would not be cut, so LD Entertainment (who bought it at SXSW) will release the film from director William Friedkin and Pulitzer/Tony-winning author Tracy Letts regardless. The first trailer for the film — which you’ll see wears the big green ratings NC-17 badge up front — is embedded below and available at Apple in HD. Following that is a short clip of the film that gives you just a taste of how fantastic McConaughey is in this film. What it doesn’t show is how stunningly hilarious Thomas Haden Church is, or how strong of a backbone Emile Hirsch provides. It’s all good, with a redneck-bent Shakespearean theatricality that drives it to dark places before the credits roll. I doubt you’ll see a more fucked up movie this year, so keep an eye out for it if you’re near a theater that will run X-rated films.
You can keep up with the film by following its Twitter Feed (which chose my reaction to the film as its first RT, to my delight). Look out for it in the braver theaters on July 27th. I’m not yet seeing mention of VOD, so I assume this will be a more traditional art house release initially.
Source | Deadline