Little Shop of Movies Review: TUSK(Available Now)

2:30 Am Jan 22, 2014
I had a nap earlier and watched this film, intrigued I wrote this review.

I found it fitting I listen to Beethoven's Symphony #5 as I write this piece, how better suited for a film of this kind where symphonic music was played throughout the film of many of it's scenes.

Death does come for all of us, but not quite the way it does for Wallace in his sad state. Also, the film is not as beautifully orchestrated as this masterful piece of music was, so many undertones so fluid for a man that had lost so many of his needed skills as a composer his hearing had faded many years before his passing but wrote such amazing pieces of music.

For Wallace, he and his friend Eddy are Podcasters that have a show they do entitle "Not-See Party" while things they mock or make fun of one of the things they find online is "The Kill Bill Kid" who while making a video of himself in the garage accidentally cuts his leg off and making fun of him on their podcast oddly enough the young man makes a request to be interviewed by Wallace.

Setting his sights on Canada, Wallace heads off to the interview.
Upon arriving finds that the young man took his own life two days prior.
Upset and wanting to not return without something Wallace is upon the urinal in the local bar and finds a posting looking for a houseboy of sorts -upon calling he is in a local convenience store getting a long drink for the ride. Asking for directions to where he might find this Howard Howe he mocks the local patrons and staff that are there awaiting his departure.

This all has come from director Kevin Smith's own Podcast where he and his friend share this small idea of a story in relation to everything (+ more) that happens in the film.

Micheal Parks upon first seeing him in "The China Lake Murders" where he played a Cop turned serial killer there has always been something about his performances that get deep under the skin. He appeared in Kevin Smith's last film "Red State" where he also was a crazed man -this one far more tortured and far darker and demented.

While others felt pain watching this film upon reading other reviews of this film, many were bored and dismayed that Mr. Smith would reach this far out. I find it to be no further than the setting of "The Fly" other than that was an experiment gone wrong, not all films were made to be liked or understood by all for this would be a dull world. I found this more a character study more than a horror film and better than most of what passes for horror these days. Less is more for a great many things -subliminal thrillers and horror are a thing of the past everyone is so visual and yet when a filmmaker has the balls to dress things down and just have us along for the ride I feel less let down by this film than I did by many this past year, especially in the horror genre.

Never being or understanding the fascinations with his first film "Clerks" I found that he had started with comedy and yet has entered the realm of semi-comedy/horror keeping a fine line between both and the surreal as well as the dark recesses of the human mind, this film is not for all but for nothing else this is a great talent of two men yes even Justin Long is good here, for being able to play a tortured soul.

Does this film really speak of anything at all? Man's inhumanity to man? Let's not get that deep for it is merely a film and an extension of a podcast.
I have posted below for your listening and viewing pleasure -which also appears in the Special Features of the DVD.

For me the film worked even though the "Tusk" part of the film was tiresome and over-amplified had it just been treated as a horror film it would have worked much better -even at the end of his podcast Kevin Smith says this is a cuddlier "Human Centipede" which this reviewer will never watch just on the subject matter alone.