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nTitle: Tusk (2014)
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nDirector: Kevin Smith
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nCast: Justin Long, Michael Parks, Johnny Depp, Haley JoelnOsment
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nPersonally, I don’t regard Kevin Smith as a “great director”.nNow don’t get me wrong, I think the guy is awesome, I love how much he lovesncomics, and I have enjoyed many of his Askewniverse movies like Dogma (1999) andnChasing Amy (1997). In other words, I don’t despise Kevin Smith’s films 100% becausensometimes they are great, problem is that sometimes, they are terrible. I wentnthrough a Kevin Smith phase (like anyone who was a film buff during the 90’s)nwhere I loved his films, but recently I re-watched Mallrats (1995) and realizednthat it was beyond painful to watch, mainly because of its unnatural dialog andnsituations, none of which come off as believable. The whole film sounds andnlooks so staged, the dialog feels as if the actors were reading it off the page,nsomething I personally hate on any movie. This last bit has always been my mainnproblem with Kevin Smith movies, the fake sounding dialog. It’s not the lack ofnvocabulary, it’s the over abundance of it. In real life, people don’t talk likenthey know every word in the dictionary, especially not college drop outs or potnheads. Still, when Smith is on all cylinders, he sometimes makes what I canncall a “good film”. Strangely enough, it’s those films that deviate from his ‘Askewniverse’nthat I find to be the best in his repertoire.
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nAnybody see Smith’s anti-religious horror flick, Red State (2011)?nWowzers, there’s a diamond in the rough. It stirred me like no other Smith filmnhad. Again, Red State is a film outside of the ‘Askewniverse’ series of filmsnand by this I mean that it’s a film that doesn’t feature Jay and Silent Bob.nAnother example of a good Kevin Smith film is the endearing, Jersey Girl (2004)na film that loss its audience because it featured Jennifer Lopez and BennAffleck together on screen after they had released the beyond awful Gigli (2003).nGigli was a fiasco of a movie. A film so bad, that anything that Affleck andnLopez did after that was affected by it, and Jersey Girl was victim number one.nA pity because Jersey Girl is actually one of Kevin Smith’s best films, trulyntouching if you ask me. Hopefully, more people will discover it as time passes.nSo here comes Tusk, yet another film in which Smith works outside of hisncomfort zone. Tusk is not the kind of film you’d expect from Smith, a directornwho commonly works the comedy genre. Here Smith attempts yet again to make anstraight forward horror film, a freak out, a movie that will possibly make younvery, very uncomfortable. Did he succeed?
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nThe answer to that question my dear readers is a resounding “yes!”nHow uncomfortable will Tusk make you? Well, I screened this one for a couple ofnmy friends at my house, all of them cringed during the whole film, many of themnsaid they couldn’t believe what they were watching and I had one walk out.nLiterally, one person simply couldn’t take the ideas presented on Smith’s Tusknand spent the duration of the film smoking cigarettes in my balcony, so thatnright there let’s you see the kind of film we’re talking about here. 99% of mynfriends couldn’t take their eyes off of the film because of how out there itnwas! And 1% walked out! What’s so crazy about this movie anyway? Well, I’llngive you the back story behind thenmaking of the film so you know what you’re getting yourself into. How thisnmovie came about is Kevin Smith has this podcast called ‘Smodcast’ and duringnsaid show (go here to listen to it) the topic of discussion was this ad theynfound in the classifieds where this guy was offering free room and board tonwhoever would agree to dress up as a Walrus. They found the add so nuts, thatnthey then made up a whole story about why this person would want somebody tondress up as a Walrus, and boom, the story for the movie was born. They thenntold their readers to type #Walrusyes if they wanted the film to be made orn#Walrusno if they thought it was a bad idea. A huge amount of listeners thoughtnit would be a phenomenal idea, fast forward a few months later, and Tusk wasnmade.
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nSame as the premise of the hypothetical story made up duringnthe podcast, the film is about this old man who puts up an ad in which he asksnsomebody to come and listen to his stories because he has a lot of them and henis lonely and wouldn’t mind some company. Justin Long’s character, a podcasternlooking for crazy stories for his show decides that this is a good one, so hengoes to the old man to listen to his stories. And that’s about as far as I wantnto go here because I don’t want to spoil this movie for anybody. Simply said,nthis movie just might freak you the hell out. It reminded me of various films;nnumber one was Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990) because it’s that kind of story wherenan unsuspecting person falls into a trap, like a fly on a spider’s web. It’llnmake you think twice before giving your confidence to someone you do not know.nSecondly it reminded me of David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), because of thenvisual, the monster, the big reveal. And yes my friends, Tusk, in my book is anmonster movie. Like a twisted version of Frankenstein mixed with Silence of thenLambs (1991) or something. It’s that crazy, it’s that eclectic. How muchncrazier can this movie get? Well, it stars Johnny Depp as this crazy, crossneyed, shot gun totting, French cop. Yeah, you read that right. Also, Johnny Depp’sndaughter cameos as a convenience store clerk, in a scene with Kevin Smith’sndaughter. Need more to convince you? Okay, Justin Long and Michael Sparks carrynthis movie on their shoulders and steal the show in the process.
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nFinal words on Tusk is that out of all of Kevin Smithnmovies, this is the one that’s shocked me the most, it’s the one that stirrednthe biggest reaction in me and that my friends is a good thing in my book. It’sna slow burner, but trust me, it will get under your skin, it will freak you thenhell out, so be prepared for that! Best thing about the whole thing? It was sonwell written, it has none of that fake sounding Kevin Smith dialog we arenaccustomed to hearing on his movies, so I’m glad he’s taken note of this andncorrected it in his films. Tusk has an amazing story attached to it, who wouldnthink such an interesting story would spawn from a podcast right? Much less anfake ad! That’s right my friends, the ad that inspired this movie was a pranknfrom one of Smith’s many fans. As you can see, the story behind this movie getsncrazier the deeper you dig, yet the resulting film was amazingly effective. Therenare a lot of horror movies out there whose main purpose is to shock the hellnout of you; I’m talking about films like Taxidermia (2006), The Human Centipeden(2009) and its sequels; most recently I saw V/H/S 2 (2013) and damn, that was anreal shocker as well! These are movies that take their ideas to such ludicrousnheights that you won’t believe what’s transpiring before your eyes, this is thenkind of film that Tusk is, and I’m astonished that Tusk came from Kevin Smith, but then again, he’dnalready showed us he had the ability to shock with Red State. Best part is thatnhe is calling Tusk the first film in his ‘Canada Trilogy’, where all threenfilms will be centered somehow around Canada. The following one is called YoganHosers (2015), a film about Yoga enthusiasts who team up with a man-hunter innorder to fight ‘an ancient evil presence’ and that film will be followed bynanother called Moose Jaws (2016), which is described simply as “Jaws, but withna Moose”. In any case, I’m happy to see Smith playing with different themes andngenres, whenever it happens, it’s fun and shocking for us as an audience. Ofncourse, this isn’t stopping him from making Clerks III, a film that Kevin Smithnis scripting as I type this. So anyhow, mark Tusk, as one of Kevin Smith’sngood ones! Seriously? One of thencraziest movies I’ve ever seen.
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nRating: 4 out of 5
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