Review of Tusk (2014) by Anthony L — 05 Dec 2014

One things for sure about Kevin Smith's "Tusk"....... You can't place this movie into a box and just label it. I mean.....sure you can call it a horror movie but I'm talking about classifying the experience of watching it as a film.

Basically before you even form an opinion about Tusk you need to fall into one of two groups. The people who like and listen to Smodcast and the people who do not. After that of course the opinions will explode in a variety of directions but making sense of this movie will be much easier for fans of the show (which of course doesn't mean they have to like it). You see Tusk was born from Kevin and Scott Mosier BS'ing around on their podcast musing over a fake news story which they turned into a loose horror story narrative. Kevin decided to turn it into a movie.

The is about Wallace Bryton who is a podcaster himself. He travels to Canada to interview a strange man named Howard Howe (Michael Parks). Howe turns out to be a lunatic with notions of actually turning Wallace (Justin Long) into a Walrus. His friends played by Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez come to rescue him and along the way they meet up with a bounty hunter of sorts played by Johnny Depp.

There are no two ways about it. Tusk is a really strange movie and about 96% is just the premise. You see (at least for me) Tusk wasn't really that messed up (I think Kevin was looking for a movie to that effect). While there are some unnerving moments and a couple of really creepy ones the film was largely benign. Parks steals the show like he did in Red State but with similar results to the overall film.

Because of how uneven things can be at times it's hard to figure out exactly what kind of vibe Smith is going for. At times it is overly silly during moments that seem like they should be more intense, but I suppose at the end this is the kind of movie you end up just goofing around with your friends. I know I've had a premise or two in my time that sounded hilarious when talking about it but making a living breathing thing is another story. I'm Kevin a lot of credit in that regard it is obviously a crazy departure from the norm for him and even several long jumps away from Red State.

I'd say watch it for the creepy performance by Michel Parks and for just how wacky Johnny Depp chose to play his character. Also bonus points to Justin Long for getting into to that rubber on a semi-regular basis. The effects look cheesy but in that lovingly B-movie kind of way. In some ways Tusk in a shout out to those kinds of films but sadly it's about as good as one and I think Smith has better story telling left in him somewhere.

Ultimately Tusk was a lot of fun to watch but it doesn't strike me as something I'm going to add to my Blu-Ray collection anytime soon.