Killer Joe Reviews
Badass Digest
Friedkin, Letts and the entire cast barrel ahead through incredibly strange, dark territory, never looking back to see if the audience is keeping up. But those who do won't regret it.
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
McConaughey is funny and fearsome in the title role, the devil holding the family accountable for their choices.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
As sordid and vile as possible.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
2UE That Movie Show
Killer Joe is America at its worst but Friedkin and McConaghey at very close to their best.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
ABC Radio (Australia)
It's like a cheap, nasty dessert: completely devoid of nutrition, probably very bad for you, but kind of delicious while it briefly lasts.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Daily Star
Only the faint-hearted or KFC kitchen staff should give it a miss.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Quickflix
Stage-to-screen adaptations are rarely this primal, and it's been a long time since a William Friedkin film has felt so vital.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Projection Booth
The humor magnifies the horror, and vice versa. Like the inflammatory Dr. Strangelove, we've sewn these seeds, and we deserve whatever is reaped from them.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
ScreenRant
Killer Joe will leave many people in shock, confusion, and in need of a thorough shower by the time it's done.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
The Aristocrat
Killer Joe is a white-hot fever dream of a film. A toxic swill of sex and violence, Joe is mordantly funny, tantalizing and, ultimately, shocking.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
We Got This Covered
Killer Joe will both infuriate and impress, but when it impresses there is nothing quite like it. It plays on the senses and lingers in the mind, McConaughey is brilliant and Friedkin finds himself in his best form in years
Full Review
| Original Score: 9.5/10
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Resembling yard sculptures in a trailer park, where trash becomes art, "Killer Joe" is a Picasso signed with a branding iron.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Twitch
Sick and twisted in the most interesting ways.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
FILMINK (Australia)
A daringly impressive and darkly funny work, which sees its director William Friedkin return to the audacious spirit of his early films.
sbs.com.au
Aside from Letts scathing one-liners the best reason to see the film is McConaughey. His Killer Joe is a quite brilliant variation on cool villainy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Scene-Stealers.com
It unfolds like a prank. After freewheeling dangerously and thrillingly for 90 minutes, it skips the relief and goes straight to the punishment. After that: The final, puzzling twist suggests that it may not have been a joke at all.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
May well do for the fried chicken leg what Friedkin's The Exorcist did for split-pea soup back in 1973.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Oregonian
It is so focused on the depravity at its heart that watching it is like subjecting yourself to a nightmare that sucks the air slowly from your lungs.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Top CriticIf you like your movies filled with twisted humor, sexual perversion, psychological intimidation and sudden violence, "Killer Joe" is the flick for you.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
East Bay Express
Friedkin's twisty-turny career, 47 years and running, shows no signs of slackening.
