“Better to be a walrus.”
The H-Bomb: Snarky would-be comedian, Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), travels to Canada to interview the latest viral video sensation, The Kill Bill Kid, for his podcast, The Not-See Party (heh-heh, get it). When he arrives in the Great White North, however, he finds that this Kill Bill Kid is sadly no longer available. Left in the lurch, Wallace figures there must be some other eccentric weirdo he can sit down with, since he has traveled such a long way, and isn’t about to leave without something, anything for next week’s show.
Fortune smiles on Wallace when he happens on a note taped to the wall of a bar restroom, offering a free room in a disabled man’s home in exchange for doing daily household chores. The author of this note claims to have spent his life traveling the world by sea, and offers, in addition to the free room, a chance to hear some of the most interesting stories a person will ever hear. Wallace is instantly intrigued, and after contacting the man by phone, drives two hours out into the middle of nowhere, to the secluded home of one Howard Howe (Michael Parks).
Wallace finds Howard to be a gentle old soul who is indeed confined to a wheelchair. The two make smalltalk over tea, with Howard telling some incredibly tall tales about Ernest Hemingway and hunting great white sharks. During their conversation, Wallace starts to feel drowsy, and just as he realizes he probably shouldn’t be drinking that tea, he passes out. Some time later, Wallace awakens to a nightmare; Howard is holding him prisoner. Howard has a special plan for Wallace. What plan, you ask? Better if I don’t say.
Walrus.
What Kevin Smith is doing with his career is genuinely fascinating. Watching Clerks or Mallrats, one would never think that the guy had a dark side. Then, in 2011, after his big studio flop Cop Out, he hit us with Red State, a satirical little exploitation flick that was very, very dark. It polarized some of Smith’s fans, but I personally dug the hell out of it, and was very much interested to see what he would do next. Well, next he did a piece of shit cartoon movie with Jay and Silent Bob, but we won’t go into that.
With Tusk, we get his real follow up to Red State, a follow up that is darker, stranger, and far more fucked up. That is honestly the most concise and precise way to sum up Tusk, a story Smith cooked up on his Smodcast while he got stoned; totally and completely fucked up. This thing is truly bonkers. Once the first act is over, it veers completely off the beaten path and never looks back. I really don’t want to give away anything that happens after Wallace and Howard’s initial meeting, I’ll simply say that the film turns into a sort of cross between Boxing Helena (except good) and a kind of early Cronenberg body altering horror flick.
Well, perhaps the Cronenberg vibe comes more from the Canadian setting than anything else. Anyhow, the ride that Smith takes us on is as disturbing as it is unpredictable. I’m not the biggest fan of Long, and his character is a total shit heel at the beginning of the movie, but watching what he has to endure often made me wince, and by the end, really had me feeling for the guy. If I had never heard of Kevin Smith before seeing this film, I’d have assumed he’d been making horror movies his whole career, he is that damn good at creating tension and dread… not to mention grossing me out at key moments.
Parks played an evil looney tune with a bat-shit philosophical world view in Red State, and in Tusk, he does the same, and like in that film, he is simply incredible. For most of it, he’s mild mannered and soft spoken. In one scene, where he acts like a village idiot, he had me busting a gut. Under the surface, though, we know he’s both incredibly calculating and totally fucking nuts, and Parks plays that to chilling perfection. Seeing how Smith has used him in his past two movies makes me realize how much Quentin Tarantino has underused him in his flicks. Parks is flawlessly frightening here, give the man a damn award!
For the supporting cast, Haley Joel Osment of all people shows up as Wallace’s co-podcaster and best friend, Teddy. Performance wise, he does fine with what little he’s given to do, though I don’t think this role is exactly going to revitalize his career, aside from perhaps becoming a member of Smith’s stock company. As Wallace’s doting girlfriend, Ally, Genesis Rodriguez has considerably more to do, as she gets a few highly emotional scenes to play, and she does so with conviction. She is the heart of the movie, and she made her feelings for Wallace believable, even though in real life she would be so far out of Justin Long’s league it wouldn’t even be funny… talk about suspension of disbelief.
There’s a very famous actor who turns up late in the show as a key character. I’m not going to say who this actor is, though it has been widely spoiled elsewhere, I’ll simply say he plays the kookiest French Canadian cop you ever will see. Some feel that his highly comedic performance throws the tone of the movie out of whack. I personally don’t feel that way. Maybe he does, but I don’t care, because he is so wonderfully weird, and took the film into yet another unexpected direction.
That’s what I loved most about Tusk, it is so damned unpredictable. Every crazy turn it takes is a surprise, that had me on my toes all the way up to it’s unexpectedly moving finale. In an age where horror films are so tired and cliched and formulaic, it is so refreshing to finally have one so twisted, and original, and again, so utterly fucked up. I’ve always found Smith to be an entertaining filmmaker, and lately he’s transformed himself into a genuinely intriguing one. Perhaps he should have starting toking up years ago. Smith has stated that Tusk is the first in a trilogy, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what he gives us next.
