Way back in the 1990s (yes, a millennium ago, kids), writer/director Kevin Smith made his name with pop culture-laced foul-mouthed comedies centering largely on crude sexual and scatalogical humor and a couple stoners known only as Jay and Silent Bob. However, Smith ultimately quit the movie business following his underrated 2011 indie horror film Red State, choosing instead to focus largely on his Smodcast podcast empire and other creative endeavors. Three years later, the auteur behind modern classics like Clerks and Dogma has emerged from self-proclaimed retirement with Tusk, and the result couldn’t be stranger.
The film follows a young podcaster named Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), who meets up with a strange old seaman (Michael Parks) in the hopes of landing some juicy stories for his show. What he finds instead is unspeakable horror and a truly unhealthy obsession with walruses. Before long, Wallace’s best friend (Haley Joel Osment) and girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) travel to Canada to rescue him, seeking the help of an eccentric investigator named Guy Lapointe.
Although any number of horror films (including Oscar winners like Misery) have used similar kidnap-centric premises, Tusk scales new heights of insanity with that concept, unleashing a maelstrom of bizarre moments and unsettling imagery on viewers. At the eye of the storm is a mad-hatter of a performance from Parks (who, as in Red State, provides the strongest onscreen presence in the film), and the ensuing ride vacillates between horror and comedy with varying degrees of success.
Inspired by an episode of Smith’s signature Smodcast show, the film feels like a fever dream come to life, capturing the spontaneity featured during Smith’s initial conversation with podcast co-host Scott Mosier. Yet, it also manages to infuse that whimsy with a storytelling structure that retrofits its initial framework with genuine heart and true thematic connectivity (while setting up spinoff film Yoga Hosers). Smith’s writing and camera work are perhaps some of his best here, and strong turns by Long and Rodriguez truly sell Tusk‘s romantic subplot.
What may be the deciding factor in where some moviegoers fall on the film will be the appearance of the character of Guy Lapointe (credited as such here, despite being played by a major Hollywood star) midway through the film. The character essentially introduces a level of broad comedy that is inconsistent with the film’s more macabre humor up to that point, and while his oddball musings certainly provide the intended comic relief to the film’s darker elements, they tend to err on the long side and often threaten to distract from the larger story at hand. In a film that is already brimming with disparate elements vying to fit within the same universe, Lapointe may be the ugly duckling of the bunch, though not enough to derail the film’s strong points.
Despite its flaws, Tusk is a well-crafted piece of cinema on the whole – our admiration of Smith aside – and marks another bold move in a career that never fails to provide intriguing conversation points. In this case, Smith has managed to transform a silly, half-serious shot-in-the-dark discussion into a full-length, widely released theatrical film. No small feat, in and of itself. Even if the finished product may not be the best film of the year, the ambition and creative spirit behind Tusk deserve to be celebrated. Smith has always forged his own path through both the film and podcasting worlds, and his latest film may not be everyone’s taste. But the very fact that Tusk not only exists at all but largely succeeds in telling its “truly transformative tale” is worth saying #WalrusYes.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Tusk stars Justin Long, Michael Parks, Genesis Rodriguez, Haley Joel Osment and “Guy Lapointe.” It is directed by Kevin Smith and is now in theaters.