The Evil That Men (and women) Do

Read the book several years ago and was completely fascinated. The film didn’t captivate me as much as the book, but still had the same sense of foreboding. Every scene was weighted with the potential for violence which made it tense throughout. And when the violence did happen, it wasn’t action movie filler, it was Scorsese-level intense.

Donald Ray Pollock’s writing reminds me a lot of Flannery O’Connor’s. Both writers create worlds where characters struggle to find order amidst the violence and chaos that can happen to anyone, anytime. And that’s much more unsettling than any number of slasher horror films.

Food in Films: That berry pie left on the Russell’s porch looked so good I could almost taste it. No wonder Arvin ate the whole thing. And the way Pastor Teagardin dipped his fingers in the gizzard sauce was great foreshadowing for a what a creep he was.