Turned out that was the right decision: it is indeed a gruesome film, even if it's also something of a tour de force for Casey Affleck:
His Deputy Sheriff/serial killer is repugnant, reptilian beneath a veneer of Good Ole Boy Southern "charm", all politeness until the knife sticks in.
And he takes ruthless advantage of the people he's grown up with, the people who trust him.
He's also, of course, a bit of a looker, in a cow-poke town where there's not much boy talent around.
He doesn't hesitate to use his sexuality to his advantage, ensnaring women and enchanting men in equal measure.
It is perhaps no coincidence that in Michael Winterbottom's film, the District Attorney who ultimately catches him out is also a good-looking man, one not seduced by Affleck's charms.
It's an immensely stylish film, capturing the expansive wealth of the 1950s in newly oil-rich Texas.
Those wide horizons and big skies only serving to emphasise how small and constrained are the lives of these people.
But this is a film which is fundamentally about grinding violence, mechanical torture and pain, sexual abuse.
It does not make for easy viewing.
But like the best of Winterbottom's films, it sticks in the mind, images and feelings haunting you.
Not one to watch just before bedtime.
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