I was plainly sickened to my stomach by "Tusk," Kevin Smith's foray into body horror with a wink. The wink makes the palpable horror even worse and it becomes a geek show reducing its tension to that of an elongated farce with bloody body parts. I'll give it points for originality but it reminded me to completely avoid "The Human Centipede" for obvious reasons.
Justin Long is a narcissistic, obscene podcaster named Wallace who, partnered with Teddy (Haley Joel Osment), run a podcast called the "Not See Party" (a stupid idea considering the homophonic comparison to you know what). Wallace has a girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) whom he cheats on and has little else to offer in life (he considers his old self to be a loser). Yes, let's see just how narcissistic the prick really is with his newfound fame and his merch celebrating someone who belittles others. The newest target is the "Kill Bill Kid" who accidentally chops off his leg with a real sword in a viral video. Wallace and Teddy find the video funny and, thus, Wallace is ready to interview the Canuck kid whose video has more hits than his podcast. It is off to Canada and when he finds out that the Kill Bill Kid killed himself, Wallace is left dumbfounded rather than remorseful. Someone else needs to be his next target of ridicule and it turns out to be an old geezer named Howard (Michael Parks), who is wheelchair-bound and has left a notice at some bar that he wishes for companionship at his remote home in Bifrost. Wallace sees the note, visits the guy and the walrus becomes more than a topic of conversation.
"Tusk" is unsettling for the first third of the movie and the tension is tightly coiled. This does not surprise me coming from director Kevin Smith who maintained tension and suspense in equal droves in "Red State." The problems arise when too much happens too soon in "Tusk," and it becomes a practically barf-inducing and sickening joke. Michael Parks underplays beautifully and Justin Long is fantastic at playing an obnoxious jerk yet whatever sympathy we develop for Wallace is lost and introduced too late in the game by way of flashbacks. The connections, however minute by narrative design, occurred to me between the Kill Bill Kid's amputation and some of the body modifications that Wallace has to suffer. Suffice to say, once you see the body modification and melding of...eh, I can't even say; well, just be prepared to avert your eyes. Yet the movie opts for some humor with the introduction of an investigator (the surprise of who's playing him is more fun in the discovery) and that breaks the tension, though it felt necessary for me. Still, once we arrive at the conclusion, it felt like Kevin Smith was just trying to make us laugh at all this. I will not give away the final scene but it rang false for me, inducing more chuckles that seem to come from a horror parody. So did Howard's obsession with walruses and what Frankenstein-like experiments he wishes to do with Wallace. Michael Parks is an excellent, seasoned actor but he couldn't convince me of these unholy practices, unlike his Elmer-Gantry preacher in "Red State."
"Tusk" is effective at times and I was not bored for a second but it is more of a sickening joke, a geek show with pretensions of horror laced with humor, than a genuine horror picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment