The film stars Matthew McConaughey in the title role, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, and Thomas Haden Church.

In the film, the estranged family of a woman scheme to kill her in order to collect on her life insurance policy, and conspire with a corrupt police officer to do the deed.

To make matters worse, Adele stole cocaine Chris was supposed to sell, and he is now desperate to pay the $6,000 debt he owes his supplier Digger Soames.

Chris and Ansel agree that after paying a hit man from the proceeds of the insurance policy, they will split the remainder four ways between themselves, Dottie and Sharla.

Dottie approves of the plan and Chris arranges a meeting with Joe Cooper, a police detective who has a side career as a contract killer.

However, Joe is interested in Dottie, who is implied to be developmentally disabled from the murder attempt by Adele, and offers to take her as a "retainer" until the insurance money comes through.

Angered, Ansel declines to protect Sharla when Joe chokes her, punches her and forces her to simulate oral sex on a fried chicken drumstick.

In the United States, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA for "graphic disturbing content involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality.

The website's consensus reads: "Violent, darkly comic, and full of strong performances, Killer Joe proves William Friedkin hasn't lost his touch, even if the plot may be too lurid for some.

[16] According to Justin Chang of Variety, "Killer Joe was Letts' first play, written more than a decade before his smash hit August: Osage County, and the text's sneer of condescension toward its panoply of trailer-trash caricatures has not entirely abated here," yet "the film doesn't belabor even its cheaper punchlines, and the fleet, kinetic visual style devised by d.p.

"[17] The Daily Telegraph said Church, Gershon, and Hirsch portray a "uniformly gormless family unit" in a film whose "positively Jacobean climax [earns] its 18 certificate and then some.

"[5] Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York named Killer Joe the fifth-best film of 2012, calling it a "thrilling black comedy.