What inspired me to come back, you ask? (no you don't) Why, only my having seen one of the GREATEST MOVIES EVER MADE. And by that I'm referring to "Thinner," Tom Holland's 1996 "horror" masterpiece based on a novel by Steven King about an obese man who runs over a gypsy while getting road head from his wife, and as a result gets a gypsy curse where he gets skinny. Yeah, I know. So as you can see, a movie like this deserves a revisiting 15 years after it's released, don't you think?
Anyway, as mentioned above, Thinner is the story of Billy Haleck, a morbidly obese lawyer living the high life defending Joe Mantegna from racketeering charges and eating whole pies in suburban Connecticut. Billy's got a beautiful (and skinny!) wife and a precocious daughter, and things couldn't get any better. That is, until trouble comes to his sleepy hometown in the form of a traveling gypsy carnival. Who HASN'T heard of this scourge laying waste to New England, right? Gypsy carnivals, terrorizing the Eastern Seaboard with their sinister ferris wheels, rigged carnival games, and comely lasses ready to lift their skirts for anyone with a few coins to spare (seriously, this happens at one point).
"This is my sexy face!"
So, the filthy gypsies set up their dark-sided filth carnival, and Billy tries to stay clear of the whole mess because they are bad news and don't have any pies for him to swallow whole like a goose. He's largely successful in avoiding the gyppos. That is, until one fateful night when he runs one over while getting road head from his skinnywife. Whoopsies! To make things worse, the old broad turns out to be the daughter of the KING OF THE GYPSIES, and who is not happy about it! He expresses his displeasure in the murdering of his bizarrely old daughter by touching Billy's face and saying "Thinnerrrrrrrr."
"But I'm so young!"
Billy's all "Weird!" but doesn't think much of it until he starts RAPIDLY LOSING WEIGHT (that's a problem?). At first Billy thinks it's great, and there's lots of comical scenes of him eating more pies and whole chickens and stuff, but eventually he starts to get TOO THIN (still don't see the problem). It's at this point that Billy starts to get worried. He tries to find comfort with his two best friends, but WHOOPS they're cursed too! You see his buddies are the judge and the police chief, both of whom helped him escape getting convicted for vehicular gypsyslaughter. Gypsy King doesn't much like that, so he makes the judge grow scales and the police chief look like the worst Proactiv before picture ever. So yeah, they're both miserable and kill themselves. NO HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS, SKELETONFACE, TRY AGAIN!
Now Billy starts to get really frustrated (a chicken carcass is hurled at one point). Apparently, the only one who can remove the curse is the Gypsy King himself, so Billy decides to recruit Joe Mantegna to...pursuade him. First he poisons all the gypsy dogs and leaves a hilarious sign that says "WHITE MAN FROM TOWN SAYS TAKE IT OFF." Sexxxy. (Also, aren't the gypsies white too? Unless you're a Nazi?). Nice try, but that just pisses off the gypsies more. Back to the drawing board. Next, he shoots up the gypsy camp with a machine gun, killing a couple of them. This time, the gypsies are shaken up, but still no dice. Curse stays.
FINALLY, mafia Joe Mantegna kidnaps the comely skirt-lifting gypsy lass from earlier. This turns out to be the gypsy weakness (take note: if ever cursed by a gypsy, kidnap the sluttiest person in the camp. It's a sure-fire cure.). So anyway, with the kidnapping of the gypsy slut, the leader finally agrees to meet with Billy and take the curse off. But there's a catch! A curse can't be removed, only transferred. So Gypsy King transfers the curse to a strawberry pie (?) by pouring some of Billy's blood into it (??? Also, ew.). He then says that whoever eats the cursed bloodpie will die a horrible death, and if Billy had any dignity he'd eat the pie himself.
"Nope! That is one pie I WON'T EAT!"
Billy's decides to feed the pie to his wife instead. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, Billy thinks his wife is boning the town doctor, so he's mad at her. So, he goes home and leaves the pie out on the counter for her to eat and then goes to bed. He awakes the next morning, giddy as a child about to see what Santa left him ("Please let it be my dead wife, Santa!"). He bounds downstairs, only to discover that HIS DAUGHTER ATE THE PIE! Bam! Whole family dead from a cursed bloodpie! In your face!
So naturally, Billy's super bummed about poisoning his daughter with a cursed gypsy pie, so he decides to eat it too. But just as he's about to take his first bite, the doorbell rings! It's the home-wrecking doctor! So, seeing a perfect opportunity, Billy invites Dr. Wifefucker in to share a slice of pie. DEATH BY GYPSYPIE! The end!
So, that's Thinner. It's, perhaps, the most ridiculous movie ever to have been made. First of all, the premise is not remotely scary, like, at all. How is a man rapidly losing weight considered a horror movie? Even at his thinnest, Billy looks, at worst, like Michael Stipe. You're just like "Aw, yeah, he's pretty thin. That's not good." Also, the makeup in this movie is awesomely terrible. Billy's fatty suit in the beginning of the movie is the best to ever grace celluloid, and the hag makeup on the gypsy king looks like a cut-rate version of Billy Crystal's in The Princess Bride.
Whoever greenlit this masterpiece deserves a medal. Hat's off to you! So yeah, if you haven't seen this movie, you should. In fact, I suggest you make it a drinking game, and do a shot every time someone says "gypsy curse." You will die of alcohol poisoning 30 minutes in. Cheers!
Screenshots via the amazing Movie Screenshots
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