Month of King: Thinner

MAX:  Hey, how's it going, Mike?

MIKE:  Bad 

MAX:  Uh-oh. Why bad?

MIKE:  Because there are a bunch of filthy, thieving, gypsies across the street from our theater. 

MAX:  Well, I don't know about all that. I think gypsies bring a lot of fun with them, don't you?

MIKE:  Fun? Are you joking? The bring disease, crime, and prostitution. What kind of fun is that? 

MAX:  Actually, it sounds like the kind of fun we had on our trip to New Orleans, remember?

MIKE:  Oh, yeah.  That was fun.  I guess gypsies aren't that bad after all. 

MAX:  Agreed. Once we're done watching this movie, let’s go across the street and join them!

MIKE:  Sweet! Hey, do you think if I give that cute gypsy girl a quarter she'll lift her skirt? 

MAX:  Dude I think she heard you say that...

MIKE:  What do you mean?  She's standing across the street.  She can't hear me. 

MAX:  No...she totally heard you....

MAX:  Thinner (1996) is a movie that is truly very close to my heart. As a matter of fact, this was actually the first horror movie I can remember renting from the video store in grade school, as a result of many battles with my parents, who still felt in the fifth grade that I was too young for R rated horror movies. This movie, based on the novel by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman), may not seem that scary by today's standards, but as an eleven year old, I'll tell you, it really scared the living piss out me. There were many nights (one particularly memorable during a lightning storm in North Carolina) where I lay awake in bed, in fear that the old gypsy man with the cancerous hole in his face was coming to get me.  Now, I know that probably sounds ridiculous, and I'd be the first to say so. In fact, Michael Constantine, the actor who played the old gypsy, Tadzu Lempke, is actually the same guy who plays the Windex spraying dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  All the same, I think this movie still holds up.  It's probably not the movie that anyone thinks of when they think Stephen King, but I think it is a damn good (and under-rated) adaptation of his work. For one thing, the use of special effects and make up in this movie are fantastic. The story, a meditation on blame and revenge, is also one that I think, will resonate with viewers, the way it continues to resonate with me. 

MIKE:  The theme of blame and revenge is what stuck with me after viewing this movie.  Now, I've only seen Thinner one other time, so I am not sentimentally attached to this film like my cohort is, and I don't lose sleep over the creepy old gypsy man Tadzu.   However, the idea that no one can accept their part of the blame is another issue.  Billy Halleck (Robert Burke) is a man with everything to lose (especially some weight), because he has what most people are looking to get out of this life: wealth, a steady job, a cute little family, and some prominence in the community.  It's funny to me how he feels like the victim, and that the curse placed upon him doesn't justify the means.  As a protagonist for the film, Billy is a hard guy to relate to; you want to see him suffer, if only because of his blatant arrogance. 

MAX:  The main way in which Billy feels that he is not (at least entirely) responsible for the accident, is that at the moment when his car hits the old gypsy woman (Susanne Lempke, the daughter of super creepy 106 year old Tadzu) he was receiving a blow job from his wife, Heidi.  In Billy's mind, Heidi is at least part responsible for why he wasn't watching the road. Kind of plays into his egotism, I'd tend to agree with you, Mike.  Still, all the same, it was an unfortunate ACCIDENT, and I guess that's why Billy feels a little miffed when he starts losing pound after pound of his gelatinous fat....all on account of the curse he receives from old man Lempke.  That moment when the old gyp reaches out and touches Billy across the face is a chilling scene, in my opinion. At that moment, I kind of do feel for Billy.  If only because he would like to forget this terrible accident and put it behind him, he's almost scott free, he's been acquitted of any potential charges and then BOOM. He's cursed. And we know as well as he does that his troubles are only just beginning. 

MIKE:  I see what you're saying, but we learn that the only reason why Billy was acquitted in the first place is because the judge and police chief co-conspire to get him off (not a single point on his license, even).  Billy has clout in the town (the movie starts off with him getting a mob boss off murder charges, so I'm sure that added to his status), and that is the only reason why he walks away from this unscathed.  The film does indicate that Billy wasn't "in" on the whole situation, but he couldn't have been THAT naive to not have expected any less.  The judge clearly has a problem with the gypsies being in town (if you can imagine a right-wing conservative speech about immigrants ruining America, then you have a good idea as to how the judge viewed the gypsies), and so did the police chief.  Tadzu might be a creepy, spiteful, old man, but he deserved some sort of justice, and for Billy to completely deny any responsibility for his actions, to me, means he got what he deserved.  Hey, Billy wasn't putting up too much of a fight when his wife went down on him in the car...I wouldn't have either, but I would have felt some sort of remorse for what had happened.  I think that's what makes it hard for me to feel sorry for him.  He only feels sorry for himself.

MAX:  Yes, I would tend to agree that the old man, Tadzu deserved "some sort of justice" as you put it.  I think that's exactly what this film plays on so cleverly: the idea of justice, and how that's meted out. The gypsies have their own code of justice that they invoke because they realize that the townies that inhabit Billy's lily white world will never treat them with any sort of civility. "Gypsy justice" is the term Lempke uses to describe what he's done to Chief Duncan Hubley and Judge Carey Rossington, by turning them into an elephant man and a human lizard, respectively.  For Billy, the punishment seems even more fitting, since he goes from being a rich fat pig to a poor shuddering skeleton within weeks. Of course, Billy isn't about to go down without a fight (as you said, he's unable to accept his own fate in this). He seeks his own form of vindication and justice in Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli (Joe Mantegna) a mafia gangster whose idea of justice is essentially a favor for a favor. He owes Billy big time, for keeping him out of prison, so he does everything within his power to help Billy settle the score. 

MIKE:  I loved watching Joe Mantegna in this film (I always get a kick seeing him work outside of The Simpsons).  But the REAL star, or should I say "supporting star," was Leda Rossington (Elizabeth Franz).  She was good...better than good...she was scary!  When Billy goes to Rossington's house to speak to the judge, and Leda is there, drunk off her ass, and completely hysterical, the crazier she got the more frightened I became of her.  Hell, for a moment there I thought she was going to try to kill Billy for what had happened to her husband; I think she should have tried.  The cast aside (for the most part I thought they all did a good job) what I struggled with was some of the dialogue.  At times it felt forced and unnatural, and at other times it became a bit too repetitive: "White man from town," being one that started off as kind of fun, but then got a bit too silly for my taste.

MAX:  Ditto on Elizabeth Franz's performance. Her crazed rant at Billy is another one of the scariest moments in the film. The fact that she can make us feel that fearful by just 'acting' is really a credit to her ability. Joe Mantegna is amazing in this movie, too. Even when he delivers cheesy lines like, "He was my mook," I think he is 100% believable and hilarious at the same time. Some of the dialogue does suffer at certain points of the movie. I'd agree that the "white man from town" business is dragged out just a bit too long.  For some reason the acting between Billy and his wife Heidi never seems quite believable enough to me, and I don't know if that's the acting or the writing. In either case, all of this is redeemed for me in the above performances we mentioned, as well as the outstanding use of special effects.  I love Billy's body suits (both thin and fat) and the makeup on Michael Constantine as Tadzu, is impeccable. 

MIKE:  The special effects are great, and the dialogue in the film doesn't really hinder it as much as I might have made it sound: it is clunky at times, but when it works it really flows well with the rest of the film.  My favorite special effect is the pie.  Yeah, Billy's transformation is cool, but there's just something about the way the pie pulsed, as though it were alive, that made me want to puke a little.

MAX:  Absolutely. The pulsating pie is the best! I love that fucking pie. 

MIKE:  Yeah, you do.

MAX:  Interestingly, the pie holds a lot real value in this story.  First of all it's an appropriate object in which to transfer Billy's curse, because it's food, and we all know how much Billy likes food. But there's another layer to this idea of the cursed pie, in that Billy must feed it to someone he believes is more deserving of his fate.  Billy immediately resolves to give it to his wife Heidi, seeing as he feels she's the one who's really responsible. Billy is also convinced that Heidi has been having an affair with his physician Dr. Mikey, which obviously fuels his vengeful intentions, although this suspicion of his is never completely confirmed. Anyway, the point is, Lempke urges Billy to eat his own pie, so he can, in effect, "die clean". At first this notion seems absurd to Billy, but once his daughter eats a piece of the cursed pie, his opinion changes pretty quick.  By finally eating his own pie, Billy is taking at least some accountability for his role in this mess.  However, it's really the cost of vengeance, the way he's harmed his own daughter, that drives him over the edge. 

MIKE:  Except we don't see him eat the pie.  Dr. Mikey makes an appearance at the door (just dropping by for a doctor's visit so early in the morn'?), which stops Billy from eating the pie.  We could ASSUME that he will have a slice along with Dr. Mikey, but the look in his eyes and on his face, when he realizes that his revenge will be complete, suggested to me that he might take this as a clean slate and start from scratch (get it?  You know, like making a pie from, “scratch.”  Get it?  I'm so witty).

MAX:  Yeah...you would be...and this may be a flaw in the film...but it's pretty clearly explained in the book that Billy plans to finish the pie with Dr. Mikey.  He's going down but he's taking the doctor with him, because guilty or not, he just really hates that guy. 

MIKE:  Then I guess that is a flaw on both myself and the film (see, I owe to my mistakes).  I never read the book (It's on my list), and because Billy displays such malice towards his family at times (not sure if this is a result of the curse, but that was my impression), I wasn't sold on the idea that he would have a slice too.  It makes sense that he would go down in a blaze of glory, but I can't also help think that he would wait for Dr. Mikey to die (just to be sure, after all, he is a meticulous lawyer), and by then decide to start his life over again.

MAX:  Yeah,  it's an interesting point to contemplate, especially because Billy doesn't really ever seem to learn his lesson...not until it's too late anyway...and even then, he's still thinking about getting even. Anyway, the witching hour is upon us and we tired screamers here in the balcony are ready to weigh in with our bloody nubs. As I've mentioned, I think Thinner completely rules. The fact that I can still be so excited about this movie after so much time is just further evidence to me of how much I love this genre. I would encourage any fans of King to check this movie out. For a movie that didn't do so well in the theaters, it packs a much harder punch than you'd think.  Two Bloody Nubs up and a blood filled pie to go, please. 

MIKE:  I'll forego the pie and take the BJ, please.  Thinner is an enjoyable movie that takes you on one hell of a ride.  I'll have to take Max's word that the film is a good adaptation of the book and move it up my Must Read list.  The special effects and interesting characters make Thinner re-watchable, and though some of you might agree that the dialogue stumbles in places, I feel that overall, you'll have a good time.  I'm giving Thinner two Bloody Nubs up!