'The Killer Inside Me': Read The Book Before You See The Movie

But that's the

trailer, bland enough to pass YouTube standards. For a much raunchier --- and far more violent --- preview that's not-safe-for-any-work environment (unless you're self-employed),

See what I mean? It's shocking. And not because it's rough sex --- between consensual adults, I'm told, this kind of sex is more theatrical than dangerous. What's shocking is that, minutes into the scene, Lou Ford beats the prostitute, and that causes her to fall in love with him. I think not. On the other hand, mine may be a narrow, middle-class take on human weirdness. Decades ago, a friend was raped, and when the rapist finished with her, he said, "I could help you," and, for the next year, they had a torrid romance. Do you know what to make of that? After all these years, I still don't. We have seen so much death in the news, in movies and in games that it's hard to say where the line of acceptability is and what a director has to do to cross it. Terrorists kill three hundred people on a plane in "Die Hard" just so Bruce Willis can have a crime to avenge. On HBO, vampires are now sexy. Many parents seem to have no problems with video games that simulate murder. "The Killer Inside Me" may well be exploitation; it could also be a wake-up call. Critics sometimes defend books like this on the grounds that they are "moral" tales. And the novel does scream that Lou Ford isn't just sick, he's evil. Stanley Kubrick, a film director who knew a thing or three about evil, called this "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered." That's because Jim Thompson, who also wrote "The Grifters" and "The Getaway," had no problem looking into the darkest reaches of the human soul and mirthlessly presenting what he found --- that is, violence, corruption and nihilism. Thompson knocked off "The Killer Inside Me" in just four weeks. Published in 1952, it was a shocker, and not just because of the violence and the sex. The character himself is disturbing. Lou Ford is the kind of dullard you do anything to avoid --- he spouts the most inane cliches, he's Mr. Hearty to one and all, he's so damn friendly and boring he drives everybody crazy. What nobody gets: He's really a kind of genius who acts like a dope on purpose. All to keep them from guessing that, when no one is looking, he's a serial killer who's kinky as hell. And then there's the writing, which is as blunt as the brutality it describes. Like this:

Why read such horrifying, disgusting stuff? Precisely because it's so acutely rendered --- no writer creates psychopaths more compelling than Jim Thompson. And no writer I can think of can put you inside a sicko's head as totally as Thompson. You may not like what he has to say, but you have to admire his ability to say it. This book gives new definition to the phrase "guilty pleasure." Just make sure you don't have to be anywhere after you start reading it --- if you don't put it down out of squeamishness, you're not going to be able to tear yourself away from "The Killer Inside Me."