In his 1.25 Movieline review of Michael Winterbottom‘s The Killer Inside Me, Seth Abramovitch describes the brutal scene in which Jessica Alba is beaten to a pulp by Casey Affleck‘s Lou.

“After making love [to Alba] and discussing their plans to reconvene a few weeks down the line, Lou pulls on a pair of black gloves, then begins to punch Alba in the face, at full force, repeatedly. The camera does not turn away, and as he takes a good dozen shots at her head, her features begin to distort at each impact with his closed fist. As she lies on the floor, unconscious, unrecognizable and barely breathing, he asks if she can hear him. He tells her he loves her, and that’s he’s sorry. He then [delivers] several more punches.”

The backers of this film are anticipating that Joe Popcorn will want to pay to see this? The deal as I understand it is that if Eli Roth is directing it’s totally deplorable torture porn, but if Michael Winterbottom is directing it’s a Sundance entry and a film that upscale cineastes might want to see.