Editorials
How Walruses Became the Stuff of Nightmares: Looking Back on Kevin Smith’s ‘Tusk’ 5 Years Later
As a lifelong horror fan I’ve seen lots of gross things. Having watched films like Saw and Hostel, while being aware of how both use graphic body horror, I’ve never felt unnerved watching them. I’ve always considered myself to have an iron gut when it comes to body horror. And then I saw Kevin Smith’s Tusk.
Smith has been one of my favorite directors ever since I first saw Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back; his work with Mallrats and Clerks have made for some of my favorite comedies. But when I heard he was making a horror movie, I was caught off guard. Nowadays we’re becoming used to hearing about artists with a background in comedy taking on horror, such as Jordan Peele and Chris Rock regarding Us and the Saw reboot (respectively). After reading the premise for Tusk, how a man is turned into a walrus, I had to see the film. I didn’t have any strong expectations and figured it might give me a couple laughs; however, while I found myself in brief moments of uncomfortable chuckling, I eventually became silent as the film dove deeper into grim territory.
Smith’s horror comedy, Tusk, was released back in 2014 and was based off a story from his podcast SModcast. The film features Justin Long as protagonist Wallace Bryton, along with Michael Parks as the film’s antagonist Howard Howe. Wallace is a podcaster who seeks humiliating viral videos; during a trip to Canada, he discovers an ad from Howard offering to share a lifetime of stories. Wallace goes to Howard’s mansion and learns that he is a retired seaman. Howard tells Wallace about a walrus who saved him from a shipwreck and who he named “Mr. Tusk.” During their conversation, Wallace passes out, Howard having drugged him; when Wallace awakens, he discovers that one of his legs was amputated and that Howard intends on putting him in a walrus suit. Over time, Howard has been kidnapping other people and using their skin to build the suit.
Now on paper that still reads a little goofy, except seeing it in person is a whole different experience. There’s an additional psychological horror to Smith’s Tusk that amplifies that of the body horror. Later in the film, we learn that Howard had to eat Mr. Tusk in order to survive on an island he was trapped on after the shipwreck; doing this sent him into a guilt and has driven him to recreate his friend. Howard’s process in putting Wallace into the walrus suit plays into Tusk’s physical and psychological horrors. Regarding the physical, the suit is made of human flesh, the tusks made from the tibia bones of Wallace’s amputated leg. While the effort of sewing Wallace inside the suit is gruesome, the end product is haunting to look at. While we are looking at a person in a costume shaped like a walrus, there’s a human feel to the suit that’s uncanny; the combination of all that human flesh along with Wallace’s eyes staring out is enough to send chills down one’s spine.
Then there’s the psychological torture Howard puts Wallace through, conditioning him to think and act like a walrus. The constant battering and berating Wallace endures is upsetting, and the ending of the film brings the whole thing to a close on a heartbreaking note.
Among the cast is that of Genesis Rodriguez who plays Wallace’s girlfriend Ally Leon. The two have a rocky relationship, Wallace constantly cheating on her and she having an affair with a close friend of his. By the end of the film, after Wallace has been able to kill Howard with his tusks, Ally and the friend find Wallace. The film then jumps to a year later, Wallace now being confined inside a wildlife sanctuary due to the psychological damage done upon him. While Ally visits him she remembers a conversation the two had about how crying separates humans from animals, since crying is proof of a soul. She tells him she still loves him, and as she’s walking away, tears roll down Wallace’s face.
Even for the film’s moments of dark comedy, like when Howard gets in his own walrus suit and fights Wallace, Tusk ends up being a much more somber experience. Where a lot of other body horror films use torture to present suffering through physical and graphic details, Tusk delivers an equal amount of emotional suffering. Wallace’s entrapment is unnerving, the dark humor only adding to the film’s tension as it continues forward in despair.
It’s in my opinion that Tusk deserves a lot more credit for all it accomplishes. If it has been a while since you’ve watched it, or you’ve never seen it, I encourage you to check it out (it’s currently on Netflix). While Kevin Smith may be remembered for his more comedic films, what he has done with Tusk is pretty intriguing; rather than make a film that attempts to solely gross us out and provide bland comedic beats, he offers us a heartbreaking story. Tusk is one of those films where the body horror is deeper than the flesh.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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