GORE FEST

Alba's Killer Inside Stirs Controversy

Actress leaves screening, crowd confronts director.

For at least one director, Sundance has hardly proven to be fun in the winter sun: The Killer Inside director Michael Winterbottom faced an angry audience after screening his film, which stars Jessica Alba, Casey Affleck, and Kate Hudson. The tale of Affleck as a psychotic Texas sheriff features graphic man-on-woman violence, including a several-minute scene depicting Alba being beaten in gory detail. Alba herself did not stick around for the whole movie—she slipped out of the Sunday premiere about midway through the film and did not return for the Monday screening, where Winterbottom defended the film by saying that it was based on a 1952 pulp fiction novel: "It's not the real world. It's a kind of parallel vision of the real world." Alba has not explained why she left the screening, but it's possible that watching oneself being beaten up is an uncomfortable experience. Though Winterbottom went on to cite the "tenderness" in the film, not many people are buying it.