‘Killer Joe’ is hard to pin down. It’s an attempt at pitch black comedy, a la Blood Simple – but it’s only sporadically effective. The thing is, the dark parts are so dark that it’s hard to recommend for most audiences – it’s not an accident that the movie pulled an NC-17 rating.

The bones of the plot are familiar: murder for hire, insurance fraud, manic pixie coming-of-age story. You’ve doubtless seen all the elements in slightly different combinations. Matthew The Shirtless plays an uber-creepy Texas detective with a side business of contract murder. A dim-witted, insolvent and throughly unlikable gambler seeks out his services. He’s hoping to have his mother killed so that he can use her insurance money to clear some pressing debt obligations. Killer Joe does not work on spec, but at the last moment accepts our protagonist’s trauma-dazed teenage sister as collateral. It’s as skeevy as it sounds, made even skeevier by Killer Joe’s insistence on pretending to be a courtly gentleman throughout the seduction/sex-trafficking that constitutes his relationship with the damaged waif.

The gambler has a father, a stupid and malleable oaf played with Neanderthal gusto by Thomas Haden Church. The gambler talks his father into taking part. The gambler has a new wife, played with real ugliness by Gina Gershon. She doesn’t need to be convinced. Even the spacey sister seems to be ok with the matricide, although she balks a bit at being sold into sexual bondage. Just a bit, though.

Of course things go unspeakably wrong. The psychosexual drama gets ratcheted up to a point where even I was looking at my feet from time to time. Angry dogs are constantly barking in the rain, and no one will do the dishes in the double-wide. The violence is grim and lingered-upon. Twists are layered on top of twists.

It’s a William Friedkin movie, so at its heart is a deep and menacing sexual dysfunction. This is never better illustrated in the consummation scene between Joe and Dottie -in just a few seamless moves Joe wins over his reluctant victim not by seduction, but by honing in on her damage in a truly harrowing way.

I can’t say that everyone should see it. I can’t even say that it worked a lot of the time. But Friedkin knows how to make a scene compelling, and Shirtless Matt gets to act for the first time in years and really tears into it. There are Blood Simple-caliber moments throughout, but it never gels into a whole film.

It’s not a total failure, but it made me want to watch ‘Blood Simple’ again.