Tusk

TUSK (18)

D: Kevin Smith

A24/Demarest/XYZ/Smodcast (William D. Johnson, Sam Englebardt, Shannon McIntosh & David Greathouse)

US 2014

101 mins

Horror/Comedy

W: Kevin Smith

DP: James Laxton

Ed: Kevin Smith

Mus: Christopher Drake

Justin Long (Wallace Bryton), Michael Parks (Howard Howe), Genesis Rodriguez (Ally Leon), Haley Joel Osment (Teddy Craft), Johnny Depp (Guy LaPointe)

Kevin Smith takes a page out of the script of The Human Centipede for this bizarre horror-comedy which also borrows heavily from Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Justin Long plays Wallace Bryton, an arrogant YouTube journalist whose podcast station is famous for mocking viral sensations. He travels to Canada to interview a teenager who chopped his own legs off performing a stunt with a samurai sword only to discover that the boy had since committed suicide. Not wanting to waste the trip, he travels to a remote part of Manitoba to interview Howard Howe, a reclusive ex-seaman who tells a story of how a walrus saved his life during his days of service, but it soon becomes apparent that the old man is insane when he drugs Wallace and informs him of a plan to turn him into a walrus.

The plot is beyond bonkers, and it's not particularly funny either, even with Johnny Depp popping up as a Van Helsing type detective.

It's not quite as unpleasant as The Human Centipede movies, but it's perfectly understandable how this flopped at the box office.

5/10