Smith horror flick has no bite
THERE’S a fine horror film inside “Tusk,” but it’s only 20 minutes long. The rest is just blubber. Howard Howe (Michael Parks) is a backwoods loner who lures an obnoxious podcaster (Justin Long), specializing in interviews with oddballs, into his spooky manse. If this happens to you, don’t drink the tea.
The old weirdo has a fixation on walruses, but of humanity he isn’t quite so fond. He has some nasty plans for the irritating podcaster, whose name, in a helpful clue, is Wallace.
Aided by a moaning Christopher Drake score reminiscent of Hans Zimmer’s best work, writer-director Kevin Smith at times cooks up a suspenseful brew. Too bad he can’t resist watering it down. Given his love of potty humor, maybe it would be more apt to say Smith pees in his own soup.
As usual, Smith keeps veering off into plot detours, often accompanied by his trademark Big Gulps of dialogue. He wastes long flashbacks on, for instance, showing that Wallace is a jerk (we figured that out in the first scene) and that his lady (Génesis Rodri- guez) is cheating on him with his podcast partner (a gone-to-seed Haley Joel Osment, himself a bit walrus-shaped these days). Though Wallace faces some ironic justice, his encounter with the old man is simply a coincidence.
Worse, just when the horror is hitting a feverish point, Smith cuts away for would-be humorous interludes involving a Québécois Clouseau — played by an unrecognizable Johnny Depp — who stops the movie cold. (Cute celebrity cameos are not the way to go when you’re trying to keep up the claustrophobia.) Except for a crazy climactic scene that finally brings together horror, comedy and Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk,” Kevin Smith’s “Tusk” mostly lacks teeth.