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Tusk is a 2014 horror movie about a podcaster who comes to Canada in search of the next great episode. What he finds is not the type of shock radio he was insisting on but instead, a crazed demented man who wants to turn this host into a Walrus.
Tusk stars Justin Long as Wallace Bryton a podcaster who along with his friend Teddy (Haley Joel Osment) host a show call the ‘Not See Party’. Get it? Because it’s a play on the word Nazi. Oh, ha ha ha ha. The holocaust was hilarious, so why shouldn’t these Aryan guys host a show that exploit that, right? Wallace is on his way to Canada to record an interview with a kid who cut his leg off while making a YouTube video. The video that was made kind of confused me and I’ll explain why later. When Wallace gets there he finds out that the kid who made said video took his own life. Now without an episode for the week, they are stuck. That is until he finds a nice handwritten letter in the men’s room, because, where else are you going to leave a nice handwritten letter if not the men’s room at some dive bar in Canada?
The letter is from a guy named Howard Howe (Michael Parks), who is old, disabled and upset that he has nobody to share his great stories with. This letter intrigues our hero so much that he drives all the way out to his estate to meet with him. While there, Wallace is drugged and is told by Howard that he plans to turn him into a Walrus.
Ever since Kevin Smith made Red State, I got excited at the thought of him doing another horror picture. In fact, I don’t know why Smith doesn’t help Rob Zombie with his movies. Zombie is great with the visuals and the tone of his films, but is really bad at characters and dialog, while Smith is the exact opposite. They would have been awesome team working on this movie. There is a lot to appreciate about Tusk.
First of all, the acting between Michael Parks and Justin Long is very good. Wallace is the type of guy who sees himself as being charming and funny when in reality he is kind of an A-hole. He means well with the jokes and all but there were some moments that wasn’t making me root for him. Howard is indeed a mentally unstable character, but Parks portrayal is really good. When we we first meet him, he is very kind and respectful individual, but as the story progresses, the layers of his sanity start to peel and he becomes more unhinged. The two actors work really well together and despite how ridiculous the plot is, I was fully invested in their story.
Now the moment when the movie lost me was when when we are introduced to the character of Guy Lapointe (Johnny Depp in an uncredited role). It isn’t so much the character I have issues with, but mainly on where in the story he is first shown. This is where I have to give some spoilers away to explain what I mean.
After Wallace finds his phone and leaves a message to his girlfriend about where he is, he is transformed right away into the Walrus. Even though it shows Teddy and Ally (Genesis Rodriguz) in search of where he is, Howard is shown teaching Wallace (now named Mr. Tusk) how to swim and eat food while they do.
When Guy Lapointe shows up, he tells about the time when he actual did meet Howard during an investigation and just thought he was nothing more than a mentally handicapped local. It would have been way better if it just concentrated on them looking for their friend. We the audience would of had the suspense of will they or wont they make it in time before he is fully transformed. I like it when a movie messes with my expectations, even though we all know what the outcome is gonna be.
Tusk was based off an idea from a Podcast that Kevin Smith and producer Scott Mosier hosted where they brainstormed this idea. When asked if they should do a movie about this, his fan base said ‘yes’ and they got funding together and shot this in less than 15 days.
If this only concentrated on the relationship between Wallace and Howard and kept the tension building if his friends would rescue him or not, this would have been a really good movie. The makeup effects by Robert Kurtzman are indeed good but the reveal of the creature comes just a bit too soon in my opinion. Not to mention the effect of the kid who got his leg cut off earlier in that YouTube Video I mentioned earlier. I really thought it was just a fake thing the kid made in post to look like his leg got cut off. The effects were bad and looked like something you could do on your phone.
I liked how it ended because it has a very Black Mirror/Twilight Zone vibe about it but that whole section with Guy Lapointe needed to be cut down. I did like that characters and the two clerks that Wallace visits before he leaves way more in Kevin Smith’s follow up Yoga Hosers.
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