Tusk (2014)

I'm still in the 'camp' that believes Kevin Smith's transition to horror is pretty much a fail despite a glimmer of potential behind his two attempts, thus far. After seeing the ambitious, yet muddled horror debut, "Red State", I got the impression that Smith has very little "sense" of the genre and with his newest outing, "Tusk", he further proves that he's more interested in cobbling together bland, derivative narratives, based solely on a Michael Parks performance...

A successful 'cringe'-podcaster travels to Canada to pursue a story on a viral video character for his show, only to have the plan fall through. He finds a flier in a men's room offering a wealth of fantastical stories from a rich, seasoned old man. The podcaster arrives at the man's estate and, after a  chummy dialog, collapses from his drugged tea. And... yeah, turns out the old guy has a boner for walruses after having been rescued by one following a shipwreck, decades ago. The movie cuts between the walrus 'transformation'/walrus training to the guy's podcast partner and impractically hot girlfriend (who typically hook up when he's out of town...) looking for him.

There's no way I'm gonna say that "Tusk" was better than "Red State". Both pretty much sucked, although I somewhat appreciated the self-awareness in which Smith went about "Tusk", as opposed to the straight-forward, unduly politically topical bore-fest that preceded it. Even if I didn't find it all that amusing - which I didn't - I did GET that it was a complete joke. I've heard from too many people who are legitimately confused by how ridiculous this "horror" movie was. It's just an overly long Saturday Night Live parody of "The Human Centipede" with Smith, again, trying to give us our fill of Parks' exemplary acting ability (which is obviously out-of-place here...). But how many times can this be used to carry a film? Other than Parks, "Tusk" has nothing going for it. The only chuckle I got out of it was the reveal of the Ed Gein-ish walrus skin suit and how stupid and rubbery it looked (again, intentionally, no doubt...). Otherwise, Justin Long is a one-dimensional, Kevin Smith-style smartass. Johnny Depp is downright annoying as the cross-eyed Canadian detective, and Long's never ending walrus screams drove me fucking nuts!

This should've been some kind of short Youtube project or something... It's just too long for what it is and pretty much everything about it just gets irritating or boring. I wouldn't say it's unwatchable as long as you acknowledge it as a 100% gag and try to derive some kinda enjoyment out of that if you can, but, ultimately, the gag was a miss.