Tusk Review

Kevin Smith made one of my favorite movies. When “Clerks” came out, I was 11. I didn’t know that just a few years later I would fall in love with being a video store clerk. To this day, I wish I was jocking a counter instead of being an idiot. I loved every minute of it. However, today, is not about the past, it’s about the future, or rather present, or something. Today I will be trying to make sense of a movie that my wife decided to nearly throw a shoe at. “Tusk” is a movie that will divide your senses as you perceive it as a dark comedy, or a horror movie. Whatever the case is, this is one hell of a narrative.

The setup is simple. An abusive, idiot of a douche played by Justin Long is on his way to interview an internet sensation. He has a podcast that talks about weird people, and things. He ventures to Canada where he finds himself at a loss. The interviewee dies and he’s left without someone to interview. Told through flashbacks, however, is his life with his girlfriend and friend. It turns out he’s not such a good guy and you start thinking that he deserves whatever is coming to him. What he ends up moving forward with will have you creeped out, especially after you realize that this concept is based on a story that Kevin Smith came up with after reading Craigslist ads.

The movie moves towards horror in the mid-section. Our interviewer meets an eccentric old man who literally turns the guy into a walrus. That’s right, gore and all the dude turns his victims into walruses, and that sparks his friends to come search for him. Well, that leads to a midpoint of boredom. Johnny Depp shows up as a detective, although his story takes too much time to explain, and nearly forced me to sleep.

All in all, “Tusk” is a horror movie with comedy elements. There are some sick moments, some absolute twisted elements. However, there are also comedic disjointed positions. Overall, it’s a movie that fills the time with “what if”, and then launches you into a “Twilight Zone” level production. The end result is one of my favorites, seeing as this movie appears to be more related to a grindhouse film than anything else. It’s slick, it’s done well, it lags a bit here and there, but in the end, you go full Walrus. I loved it. I recommend “Tusk” as an oddity of horror and comedy. I think Troma should’ve done this one, but that’s just me. Smith does well here, and it shows. Check it out on blu ray today.