Review of Tusk (2014) by Mike W — 22 Sep 2014

Wow. Literally all I can say about this movie. It's downright bizarre and I can say it was entertaining to me being a Kevin Smith fan, but man was it one of the weirder films I've seen in my history of watching movies.

Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) and Teddy Craft (Haley Joel Osment..yeah he's still alive) are podcasters who love to poke fun at people and have a pretty successful business doing it. When Wallace goes to Canada to look into a story he soon finds out he is at a dead end.

In a bathroom stall he sees an ad where a man is asking someone to come over and listen to his many adventures. Wallace soon is on the road and meets the man named Howard Howe (Michael Parks). There's more than meets the eye and Wallace soon finds himself drugged.

Howard turns out to be a maniac that slowly is turning Wallace into Walrus...yes you read that right. Wallace loses his legs, has his arms sewn to his chest and is put into a walrus suit. His tongue is cut out and he must act like a Walrus or be killed.

How far is Wallace willing to go before his own animal instincts overtake him is the question that Howard ponders to him. Meanwhile, since he's been missing Teddy and Ally Leon (Genesis Rodriguez) [Wallace's GF] head to Canada to search for Wallace's last known location.

They are joined by Guy Lapointe (Johnny Depp) and the search is on. The movie like i've stated is super strange. There's a lot of dialogue which is typical for a Kevin Smith film, but a few scenes (especially the Guy Lapointe scenes) run a bit too long after we've already gotten the point.

Justin Long does great in this strange role as does Michael Parks. The movie is super gruesome and just so so so so so weird. Even thinking back to it now leaves a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It's a film you watch once for the experience and thats that you don't watch it again. Kevin Smith has been getting into the more bizarre lately especially with Tusk and before it Red State (2011).

I don't exactly like this approach to horror he has. It seems like he still wants to be funny, so there's a ton of dark humor in the film. It hurts the film overall, I was never sure if it was appropriate to laugh, or just be sad about the situation.

Hopefully, soon we see a return to comedy that comes so naturally to Smith. Overall, I can't recommend this because it is definitely not for everyone and it's just downright bizarre.