Tusk (2014)

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I generally say I'm a Kevin Smith fan, but I'm also pretty tardy with following him up. As far as I'm concerned he pretty much peaked with Mallrats and it's been all downhill since then, except maybe for Dogma. And Tusk isn't Mallrats.

However, it does have Justin Long, and he's just endlessly watchable. It also has Johnny Depp. And then it has both Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp's daughters. And Haley Joel Osment, the fascinatingly grown child-star of Sixth Sense et al. And some other good acting type people.

It's like a whacky story of a podcaster who goes to investigate this viral video kid in Canada. But that doesn't work out and he's kidnapped by a serial-killer who mutilates humans into walruses. Comedy ensues... sort of. It goes so far, but I don't think it totally makes it to wherever it could have gone.

It has the usual Kevin Smith use of suburban Americana, the jokily jokey podcasters, the Big Gulp, the spelling problems of your own making. It has an excellently good-bad humanoid-walrus get up. Some nice, weird sense of come-uppance. I don't know... it's that borderline between horror and comedy that sometimes works amazingly, sometimes not so much.

J* gives it 3 stars

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