The Killer Inside Me (2010 film)

Plot[edit]

In 1952, Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of his small west Texas community; secretly, he is a sociopath with violent sexual tastes. Years before, Lou was caught raping a little girl by his adopted brother Mike, who pleaded guilty to the crime to protect Lou. Released from prison, Mike was hired by Chester Conway, and died in a construction “accident” Lou believes was staged by Conway.


At the request of Sheriff Bob Maples, Lou visits Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute who is having an affair with Conway's son, Elmer. When she continuously provokes him with slaps, Lou violently beats Joyce, who enjoys pain, and they begin their own affair. They devise a plot to extort $10,000 from Conway. Maples and Conway ask Lou to oversee the payoff, but Lou enacts his own plan: he brutally beats Joyce and, believing her dead, shoots and kills Elmer, planting the gun on Joyce. However, Joyce survives, and Conway intends to see her executed for Elmer's murder.


Lou's reputation begins to falter: his fiancée Amy suspects his infidelity, and county district attorney Howard Hendricks suspects Lou is the real killer. Lou accompanies Maples and Conway in taking Joyce to the hospital in Fort Worth so Conway can interrogate her. Lou waits in a hotel room during her surgery, and Maples tells him Joyce died on the operating table, which leaves Lou speechless.


Returning home, Lou discovers explicit photographs inside a Bible. The woman in the photographs was Helene, a housekeeper and babysitter from his youth who resembles Joyce. Lou recalls that Helene introduced him to sadomasochism, and burns the photos.


Hendricks arrests Johnnie Pappas, a local youth Lou had befriended, as a suspect in the murders. He is found with one of Conway's marked $20 bills, given to him by Lou. Hendricks asks Lou to persuade Johnnie to confess; in Johnnie's cell, Lou confesses to Johnnie that he is the killer, and hangs Johnnie to make it appear as though he committed suicide out of guilt.


Johnnie's death only makes the town more suspicious of Lou. Journalist and union organizer Joe Rothman, who had previously suggested that Conway had Mike killed, implies that he knows Lou is the killer. Lou proposes to Amy, and to sate his violent predilections, she allows him to spank her. An alcoholic bum, whom Lou had previously burnt with a cigar, has been trailing Lou and knows he is responsible for the murders. He demands $5,000 to keep quiet, to which Lou agrees. On the day Lou and Amy had planned to elope, Lou beats her to death; the bum sees her body and runs for help. Lou gives chase, shouting that the bum has murdered Amy, and another deputy, Jeff Plummer, shoots the bum dead.


The next morning, Plummer informs Lou that Sheriff Maples has committed suicide. Hendricks and Plummer try to get a confession from Lou, but he cockily refuses. They find a letter Amy intended to give Lou in which she begs him to come clean. Lou is arrested and sent to an insane asylum, where he suffers hallucinations of Amy and Helene. Attorney Billy Boy Walker, hired by Rothman, has Lou released. Lou tells Walker everything and concludes that he does not want anyone else to die.


Lost in violent fantasies, Lou douses his house in gasoline and alcohol, arms himself with a knife, and sits in his study to await retribution. The police arrive with Hendricks, Conway, Plummer and the still-alive Joyce. She tells Lou that she refused to cooperate with the authorities, Lou tells her he loves her, then stabs her in the stomach. Plummer opens fire, hitting both Joyce and Lou and igniting the gasoline. Outside, the approaching policemen watch the house engulfed in a fireball that Lou has ignited to kill himself.