Ya so this was just as ridiculous as it sounded. Tusk doesn't even come close to the Misery film it wants to be. I'll give it points for its decent setup, but by the end, Kevin Smith appears to have just wanted to make the audience suffer. I think that would have been OK for a Twilight Zone-length TV episode, but as a movie, it leaves a pretty sour taste in your mouth.

C-

Side note: I didn't have many feelings for Kevin Smith having only seen Chasing Amy, but this definitely doesn't make me want to go see more of his films.

how's johnny depp's canadian accent?

He's French-Canadian in this (emphasis on the French), and it's more of Jacques Clouseau impersonation that anything else. He might be the most ridiculous thing about this movie shockingly.

With Tusk, writer and director Kevin Smith has made a picture which swings with violent abandon from great to awful, resulting in an often intriguing, yet also frustrating overall experience. Justin Long stars as Wallace, a loud, vane, and vulgar podcast producer traveling from California to Canada in search of a far-out and/or grotesque story to tell on the popular program he co-hosts with an old friend, played by a restrained and charismatic Haley Joel Osment. A few mishaps and a couple hours of driving later, he finds himself in the grand and eerie home of one Howard Howe (Michael Parks), a wheelchair-bound former sailor and raconteur claiming to have known Hemingway and promising to recount the best of his adventures on the high seas. Howe, though, has a sinister ulterior motive for inviting Wallace to his house: he intends to abduct him and transform him from a man into a walrus so as to re-enact a profound and haunting incident from his past.

For around an hour, this frightening and preposterous premise bears fruit. Long turns in a fine performance as a self-satisfied brute of a man whose humanity is renewed just before it is stolen from him, and there is a tantalizing, Vincent Price-style quality to Parks' turn as the mad, yet regal captor. And the flesh-stretching, bone-bending walrus transformation is an astonishing nightmare to behold; the behind-the-scenes team create a convincing and painful vision of a tortured man rendered a perverse facsimile of an animal. Despite these qualities, the film trends downward in its deflating third act. The deflation is signaled by the introduction of an A-list actor in an extended cameo: Johnny Depp as an absurd, ranting French Canadian Clouseau whose devotion to searching for Howe cost him his place on the police force. The actor's larger-than-life presence (he seems to be using his screen time to amuse himself, testing how many heavy tics he can combine before achieving a type of combustion) coupled with Smith's obvious reluctance to limit or in any way direct such a famous player deprives the film of oxygen. His scenes simply go on and on and on further still. The pace becomes lax as the previous sense of macabre dread subsides, and the film never recovers from the gargantuan distraction before coming to a rather abrupt end.

C+

I know this won't be a very popular opinion among the mainstream but I really loved this. As someone who wasn't a huge fan of Smith's first venture into the horror genre, I thought he showed quite a bit of growth here. I will get this away, yes this is about a creepy old man who has an obsession with walruses and he turns his victims into them. Yes, it sounds stupid but if you just go with it, I would like to think you'll be pleasantly surprise. Like I previously said, Smith showed a tremendous amount of growth from Red State. It was actually very well directed and the pacing was nearly perfect. There were a few scenes that went on a bit too long (a certain flashback comes to mind) but otherwise, it was paced perfectly. The acting was great as well. Michael Parks is fantastic (though I preferred his performance in Red State), Justin Long and Haley Joel Osment (who after Sassy Pants and this needs to be in more movies) were very good as well. The biggest surprise to me here was Genesis Rodriguez who turned in a seriously wonderful performance. I hope I see more from her soon, I loved her. The end is as bat shit crazy as you've heard but I was surprised how sad and poignant the final scene was. As a fan of off the wall horror movies, I really couldn't recommend this enough. I thought it was a breath of fresh air and a major surprise and return to form for Kevin Smith.

A-

There was no real time frame on how long it took them to find Wallace, so I just find of assumed his body just took the suit as it's own since it was all sown onto him, or would something like that not really happen? I do agree though, I figured that's what would have happened but I just kind of went with it and found the last scene quite heartbreaking.

Tusk

What a repulsive and sick film. It's just horrid. I don't mean the violence. But the dread and terror created by Michael Parks (similar to how he did in Red State) is just powerful and damaging. The supremely dark humour of having an irreversible Walrus operation (against your will) is just too much for me.

Everything before the transformation was great. It was captivating stuff, and the dialogue was brilliant. Justin Long and Haley Joel Osmont were terrific, and Genesis Rodriguez was great too. Having such a beauty to contrast the hideous animal transformation also highlighted my repulsion. It was like having Leia next to Jabba. Makes me want to throw up. Johnny Depp was fantastic. Really, everything is great apart from the transformation and the idea that he will live like this forever because of one delusional and wicked old man. No matter how much I liked certain parts, the feeling I left with was one of disgust, and I won't be watching any more of Smith's trash.

D

I actually thought this was very good though Depp's Guy Lapointe character seriously drags it down. The inclusion of his character puts the breaks on things and he overstays his welcome. The flashback of him talking to Park's character on the porch is just eye-roll inducing. Thankfully I still liked it despite this, though the ending is ridiculous. I feel silly saying that about a movie with this plot, but c'mon. Are we really supposed to believe they'd leave him as a walrus? Surely doctors would have tried to reverse the transformation. It just makes no sense. That being said the movie as a whole was intriguing and grotesquely terrifying. I could forgive the ending if Smith had just left Johnny Depp's scenes on the cutting room floor or at least greatly reduced them.

Anyway, I thought it was overall better than Red State.

7/10 ( B )

I have yet to see it, but can you blame Smith for including Depp as much as he could? It's easily the biggest star (Affleck notwithstanding, considering his place pre-Argo) he's ever worked with.

Depp was great in it.

Even if it's at the expense of the film? Yes I can.

The pot finally got to him.

It's not scary enough.

It's not funny enough.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.
- For a man who claims to love Canada, Smith sure is taking one shot after another here. And I don't even know what Depp is doing.
- Haley Joel Osment there...it's very much implied he's trying to fuck Rodriguez. Why does he give a shit where his partner went? Is he pretending to care? It's never explained.
- Cut the fucker out of the suit. So what if he's all walrus by the end? Get some fucking scissors and therapy. On a side note, that French-Canadian stereotype says that he thinks 23 men have been killed (or put through the Walrus shit). Where is Parks getting all the extra skin if he keeps letting the "failures" go?

And some things should just remain stories on podcasts.

From the man who made Mallrats, it's quite the achievement that this is easily the worst movie Smith has ever made.

There are two distinct thoughts I have after finally watching Tusk.

1. Kevin Smith is an insane genius.
2. Kevin Smith can't make films anymore.

Much of the terrifying scenes between Michael Parks and Justin Long are tremendous. Despite Smith's insistence that Parks deliver long, convoluted monologues, most of which don't work, these scenes make the movie. The final grotesque vision of Long in a walrus suit is disgusting, as it should be. I don't remember feeling so unsettled in a long time, and that's what a horror movie should do.

Except... far too often, it's not a horror movie. Kevin Smith, once known for crackling dialogue between slackers, fails to capture a youthful voice here. Justin Long's Wallace is a cocky, obnoxious douche with a penchant for making fun of everyone. His back-and-forths with Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez and Michael Parks, pre-drugging, verge on cringe-worthy. It's not necessarily Justin's acting (which, I believe, can be vastly underrated after seeing his scenes with Parks once he figures out he's been held prisoner by a lunatic) but Smith's writing that suffers the movie.

Long story short: Kevin Smith can't do comedy anymore. That's troubling for a man with at least two comedies in his near future.

It's not any more clear than when Johnny Depp's Guy Lapointe is dropped, almost without reason, into the movie. Look, Depp is great at basically having fun with the role. Any blame should not be put on Depp or even the character but the fact that the movie doesn't necessitate him, at least not as a bumbling, mumbling oddball. The film is full of dread and terror for the better part of an hour, but once Depp shows up, it ends up being a farce. Either his character should have been less about laughs and more about creating an equally-loony counterpoint to Parks' Howard Howe, or the rest of the movie should have been played up as a B-movie, which, given the bizarre and off-kilter ending, may have benefited the movie overall.

But too much of the movie does work. Haley Joel Osment gives a great, low-key performance, and I actually would have preferred he and Genesis Rodriguez to have more scenes tracking down Wallace, with or without Guy Lapointe. Speaking of, Genesis Rodriguez might give one of the best performances Kevin Smith has ever directed, which I know isn't saying a lot, but given the fact that she's the least experienced of the entire main cast, it's a welcome surprise. Her teary-eyed monologue feels out of place, as if Smith tried to get artsy, but it's not her fault. There are also a few great filmmaking choices Smith makes, including a few of the Wallace flashbacks to the past paired with his devastating present. Though in the same breath, the Howe/Guy flashback is unnecessary and further drags down the third act.

It's not a trainwreck, but it veers dangerously close. If not for Smith's precise ability to do a solid horror movie, Tusk would be a disaster. But, coupled with Red State, this proves that Smith should have abandoned comedy altogether and just went full-horror. His imagination has only grown since Clerks. But his knack for creating laughs is disappearing fast.

B-

List:

1. Clerks (A+)
2. Chasing Amy (A)
3. Clerks II (A-)
4. Dogma (A-)
5. Jay and Silent Bob Get Old (B+)
6. Red State (B+)
7. Zack and Miri Make a Porno (B)
8. Mallrats (B)
9. Tusk (B-)
10. Jersey Girl (C+)
11. Cop Out (C-)