Tusk
If you’re a Kevin Smith junkie, as I am, you’ll appreciate the verbal pinwheels he spins around the horror genre in Tusk. If not, go dull your brain cells at Hollywood multiplex gunk. Tusk feels as offhand and undercooked as a podcast, which is how it started for Smith, so the jokes are hit-and-miss. Justin Long impresses as Wallace, half of an L.A. podcasting team – Teddy (Haley Joel Osment) is the other – specializing in the bizarre. That leads Wallace to Winnipeg, where he meets wealthy recluse Howard Howe (Michael Parks, relishing a role that allows him to be charming and bug-fuck nuts). Howe wants to turn Wallace into a walrus, and he has the surgical tools to do it. I’ll say no more, except watch out for an A-list star in prosthetic disguise as Guy Lapointe, a Quebec cop with an outrageous accent. Smith leavens the gags and gross-outs with surprising heart. It won’t help. Tusk is a mesmerizing mess that will make Joe Popcorn yak. Jay and Silent Bob will love it.