I thought it was a pretty repugnant artistically.

I wrote a review on my film blog.

Here are few paragraphs from that post:

The Killer Inside Me has been described as a “character study”, as can often be fashionable with films and stories of this type. Beware: it's fast becoming – if it wasn't already – an industry shorthand for broody, introspective non-commitment.

Writing for Film4, Catherine Bray notes, “Lou is a polite, rather dull man, leading a highly conventional life, and if it weren't for that fact that he commits some atrocious crimes, there would be very little point in making a film about him. If we accept this, then his violence is what legitimises him as a subject.”

This, apparently, is what might have drawn Winterbottom to the character. But Bray is right to go on: “Violence being the thrust of the film, what does The Killer Inside Me have to say about violence? Not as much as you might hope, is the answer.” The film is vacant of any moral or personal complexity. Its despairing tone is a result more of its sheer, stubborn hopelessness than its atmospheric rendering of a period Texas. A Kiss Me Deadly-style conclusion lends the work absurdity, but not a jot of seriousness.