Review — Tusk 2014
“Tusk” is a film I had heard of a number of times over the last few years, mostly from my sister, who isn’t much of a horror fan. She always spoke as though “Tusk” was horrifying and disturbing… so I was rather surprised to find the movie is supposed to be a horror-comedy. Still, my sister maintained she didn’t see much in the way of humour. So, finally, I decided to check the movie out for myself.
“Tusk” tells the bizarre and ironic story of Wallace Bryton, a selfish and sophomoric Podcaster who travels to Canada hoping to “interview” (more accurately, ‘mock’ and ‘exploit’) an unfortunate new internet sensation famous for accidentally chopping off his own leg, on video. When things with the “interview”…don’t go as planned, however, Wallace needs to find a new story. Lucky for him, he happens across a poster from an elderly man claiming to have lots of interesting adventures to share with someone who will listen. All Wallace has to do is drive a couple of hours into the middle of nowhere and willingly enter the house of a stranger, where he, naturally, accepts some tea and settles in to hear some awesome tales, some of which involve a walrus, named Mr. Tusk. The tea appears to be making him pretty sleepy…but he keeps drinking it without much in the way of inquiry. In other words, Wallace is your typical over-confident jerk, and he puts himself in a ridiculously dangerous situation. So, inevitably, Wallace ends up held prisoner by the old man, who has big plans for his new “surrogate Mr. Tusk”.
Personally, I did find this movie pretty funny. The less than likeable nature of our protagonist, Wallace, coupled with how utterly he brought everything on himself, leaves me feeling little sympathy for his situation. Add that to how ludicrous his situation ends up being, and throw in all the scenes that are clearly comedic…(not to mention the hilarity of his name being Wallace!) And yeah, I’d certainly say I see the comedy side of “Tusk”. However, “Tusk” absolutely fulfills the horror side of horror-comedy as well. There are a number of scenes that are not at all intended to be funny. Some horror-comedies blend horror and comedy, while, for the most part, “Tusk” alternates between scenes of comedy and scenes of horror, which can be a little ‘jarring’. The “reveal”, however, is an interesting blend of horror and comedy, I’d say there’s definitely more horror there, than comedy, but overall I certainly see the humour and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the watch. “Tusk” is interesting, thought-provoking and different from anything I’ve ever seen before.
