Kevin Smith’s ‘Tusk’ is a seriously fucked up horror flick

Tusk, Kevin Smith’s latest, firmly demonstrates that the writer/director no longer gives a fuck what people think.  Smith has spent a great deal of time and energy fussing over the critical and financial failings of his recent box-office duds Cop Out and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and had seemingly given up on filmmaking entirely to focus on his various podcasts and live appearances. Tusk is being billed as a return to form for Smith – a movie so incredibly strange, and with such drastic tonal shifts, that, for better or worse, is a distinctly Kevin Smith production.

Tusk stars Justin Long as Wallace Bryton, co-host of the “Not-See Party” podcast, (try saying it out loud) a schlocky show where Bryton travels to interview strange guests, and then pokes fun of them with his co-host Teddy (Haley Joel Osment).

Wallace is on his way to Winnipeg to interview The Kill Bill Kid, (a nod to both Quentin Tarantino and Quebec’s own infamous Star Wars Kid) a loner who becomes a viral sensation after accidentally slicing off his leg while emulating his favourite Kill Bill sword-fighting moves. When Wallace finds out that the recent amputee has taken his own life, he heads off to a local Winnipeg watering hole, where he comes upon a hand-written advert in the men’s washroom by an eloquent old sailor named Howard Howe (Michael Parks) offering a free place to stay in his mansion outside of town. Wallace immediately contacts Howe, hoping to salvage his trip by securing an interview with the reclusive weirdo for his podcast.

Howe is played with absolute creepy perfection by Michael Parks, who was also the saving grace behind Kevin Smith’s Red State. As the wheelchair-bound elder sailor seeking a companion to share his lifetime of stories with, Howe regales Wallace with stories of drinking with Ernest Hemingway in WWII, and sailing across the world. Much of the surprise and utter craziness of what transpires throughout the rest of the film occurs next, and in an effort to try to remain spoiler free until the movie is widely available, we’ll keep Howe’s ultimate plan under wraps. Suffice it to say, things do not go well for our obnoxious podcaster. He is kept prisoner in Howe’s secluded home, where he is tortured and transformed into a grotesque monstrosity, all to Howe’s eminent delight.

The sequences in Howe’s lived-in mansion are some of the most striking in all of Smith’s work, as Wallace confronts the horrors that Howe has brought upon him. Smith plays this section fairly straight, keeping the tone incredibly dark and unrelentingly grim, save for Park’s maniacal utterings. The film is at its strongest here, before Howe reveals (at length – this is a Kevin Smith movie) the insane reasons behind his abduction and transformation of Wallace.

Much like Red State, the third act of Tusk shifts drastically in tone, introducing a new character that takes the film in some zany directions. Teddy and Wallace’s girlfriend Allison (Genesis Rodriguez) meet up with a Quebec homicide detective named Guy Lapointe, played by an unbilled Hollywood superstar with a terrible prosthetic nose, and an even worse French accent. Lapointe is often played for laughs, but with his off-kilter look and bizarre accent, adds another layer of unease to the already disjointed plot.

Tusk came about during a bit in Kevin Smith’s Smodcast podcast with his long-term producer Scott Mosier, where the duo discussed a strange personals ad they had seen. The conversation quickly spiraled out of control, as they envisioned an entire film about the ad, complete with a ridiculous final battle sequence. Incredibly, the final version of Tusk is a pretty accurate representation of that off-the-cuff conversation, and retains that dementedly playful glee throughout.

That said, many of the monologues, including some of Howe’s portentous speeches, run on for far too long, and the mix of dick jokes interspersed with intense body horror is often jarring. Seeing the film at the Toronto International Film Festival was a unique experience, given the plethora of Canada-related jokes throughout. Tusk is likely the first mainstream movie to name drop a “double-double,” and the first horror movie to offer up an in-depth recap of Quebec’s Duplessis orphans scam.

For a movie that was basically put together on a lark, Tusk is a sleek and disturbing horror-comedy, that, like Red State before it, succumbs a bit too heavily to Smith’s broad humour inclinations. Still, the premise is so off-the-wall, and the performances so committed, that Tusk will likely live on as a late-night horror staple, and bodes well for this second coming of Smith’s career.

Tusk opens September 19.