Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Tusk review: Kevin Smith does a brilliant 180 in new horror film.




    As I sit here typing at this review, my first since returning from Wroxton, I realize something:

            I could not have picked a stranger film for my first review back- one where I’ll never look at walruses the same way again.

In his new film "Tusk", Kevin Smith returns to the director's chair after being absent for three long years. The film, a major departure for Smith, focuses on a podcaster named Wallace Bryton, played by Justin Long. Bryton, along with his best friend and co-host Teddy Craft, played by Haley Joel Osment, facilitate a podcast where they find videos of people doing strange things and make fun of the people who make the videos. As Bryton heads to Canada to talk to one of the participants of the weird videos, he stumbles across an advertisement detailing a man willing to tell of his adventures at sea. Michael Parks plays Howard Howe, the man who agrees to tell Bryton his wondrous tales. However, soon Bryton is kidnapped by Howe and is held captive and subjected to many torturous and strange experiments, including being forced to dress up in a startlingly realistic walrus suit.

There is more to the plot but if you have never heard of this movie before, then I really do not want to say too much else to give anything away. "Tusk" is disturbingly terrifying at times. It stayed with me long after the credits- even as I type this, I still think about it. 

…yet the film revels in being delightfully macabre, darkly humorous, and at times surprisingly poignant. This is easily the best movie Kevin Smith has made in years and one of the strangest movies I’ve seen in quite a while.

For the most part, the acting is pretty great with standout performances by Parks, Osment, and the actor who plays Guy LaPointe, a Quebec detective who helps Craft and Bryton’s girlfriend, (Genesis Rodriguez), find Bryton after he disappears. Parks is deliciously terrifying in this role, coming off as sweet and calm, and then slowly revealing himself as a deranged and absolutely terrorizing man. It’s a shame Parks is not in more films, because he’s such an underrated talent and he knocks it out of the park- pun intended.

Also, welcome back Haley Joel Osment. I think the last big movie that he was in was 2003’s "Secondhand Lions." It has been quite a while since we saw Osment on screen, and he captured his character excellently. His character joins Bryton in making fun of these videos, but deep down his character is naïve and has a sweet sensibility, almost as if he wants to be able to do the right thing, but just can’t. I hope to see more from Osment in the future.

Finally, the last standout in the film is the actor who plays Guy LaPointe. I do not want to reveal who it is, for he is a very big name actor and I hope that you are as surprised as I was. Admittedly, this is an actor, who has seemed as if he’s been phoning it in for his last few performances. In this movie, though, he gives probably the best performance of his entire career. His character is so wonderfully wacky and gonzo that you can’t help but smile when he’s on screen.

The film’s plot, which is undeniably silly at first glance, actually turns out to be a truly unsettling and disconcerting film about losing one’s human psyche; losing control of what really holds us together as human beings. How the story came together is actually rather interesting, as Smith based the plot of the film off a hypothetical pitch he and his friend, producer Scott Mosier, made during episode 259 of their podcast called “SMODcast” after viewing an advertisement on the website GumTree. The story Smith puts together is the most radical departure he’s ever taken in his entire career, even more so than his last film, 2011’s "Red State."  The film is so darkly humorous that there were times where I was laughing, but I felt like I shouldn’t be laughing because the moments on screen were not funny at all.

I will say that if you are grossed out by this kind of macabre type of horror, or just grossed out easily by horror, then this film is not for you. I saw people walk out of the theater grumbling angrily at how much they hated the film. However, if you are a Kevin Smith fan or want to see an interesting take on horror, I highly recommend checking out "Tusk".

"Tusk" is a very enjoyable horror film. It is the best movie Smith has made in years, though it is also not for the very squeamish. If you are a fan of unique and weird horror, I suggest giving it a look.

Grade: B+