Sundance 2010: First Images From Michael Winterbottom Thriller THE KILLER INSIDE ME

Expect Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me to be one of the big buzz films of Sundance 2010.  Why?  First, because it's Winterbottom and good Winterbottom is very good indeed.  Second, because it has a stellar cast anchored by the always impressive Casey Affleck back by strong character players such as Elias Koteas and a couple faces for the mainstream in Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba.  And, finally, because apparently Affleck pounds one of those faces - namely Alba's - into the dirt, hard, in a beating sequence brutal enough that festival organizers are already cautioning the press about it. And there you have the perfect storm for a media phenomenon.  What's it about?

Based on the novel by legendary pulp writer Jim Thompson, Michael Winterbottom's THE KILLER INSIDE ME tells the story of handsome, charming, unassuming small town sheriff's deputy Lou Ford.

Lou has a bunch of problems. Woman problems. Law enforcement problems. An ever-growing pile of murder victims in his West Texas jurisdiction. And the fact he's a sadist, a psychopath, a killer. Suspicion begins to fall on Lou, and it's only a matter of time before he runs out of alibis.

But in Thompson's savage, bleak, blacker than noir universe nothing is ever what it seems, and it turns out that the investigators pursuing him might have a secret of their own.

Check the first, amazing, images in the gallery below.