Killer Joe: Analysis Of The Conclusion

Killer Joe is a film about a dysfunctional white trash family who hire a cop who is also an assassin to kill their mother, who we never get to meet until after the killing. Once the job is done they don’t have the means to pay off Killer Joe, so he takes the youngest female, Dottie, for collateral. Once that happens this film travels down a twisted path, one that people have both loved and hated. I honestly thought this was a very good film up until the very ending scene. It was a huge drop off ending that did not explain anything. Unless William Friedkin is planning on making a direct sequel then I do not understand the point of using that ending. For this article I will be spoiling it. The 13 year old girl Dottie has been having a sexual relationship with Killer Joe as a way to pay him back for his services. There is a huge fight scene because Killer Joe and Dottie are going to get married, and Joe finds out that the wife was involved in the murder plot to collect on the insurance money, she in cheating on her husband with the husband of the dead mother. After the huge fight Dottie admits that she is pregnant, suprising everyone. She takes a gun and kills her brother and shoots her father in the stomach. She does not shoot Killer Joe or the step mother. That’s it, that’s how the film ends. This in my opinion is one of the worst endings to a film that I have seen in a long time. I did not understand why Friedkin would choose such a dull, inconclusive ending for a film that had such an intense rising action. I would really like to hear a long explanation from the director about what the ending means, why it ended that way, and how he decided to end it that way. I am not satisfied with this inconclusive ending and it honestly ruined the whole film for me.