Movie Review: The Greasy Strangler (2016)

[Dave Gray]

The Greasy Strangler (2016)

Premise: A dysfunctional father and son vie for the attention of the same girl, while the mystery of a horror-esque strangler looms.

Rating: Ultimately not for me, but I was able to find some enjoyment in its familiarity with other gonzo classics.



OK, a little backstory:  I do a summer movie contest where we have to pick box office numbers.  In our group, the winner gets to pick one movie that everyone else in the group has to watch.  You can pick something that you think they'll love, you can punish them with something they might hate, you can pick something that they'd never watch on their own -- there are lots of ways to do it.

This year, my friend Kevin won and he chose this movie.  It's very out-there and it's hard to give it a traditional review.  It is, however, a good choice for this exercise because it's never something I would have chosen and it simultaneously feels like an attempt to let me into his twisted world, while also issuing me a punishment.

The best I can describe this film is to take a heavy dose of Pink Flamingoes (1972) and toss in the off-beat vibes of Napoleon Dynamite (2004) with a pinch of The Devil's Rejects (2005) -- all wrapped up in an Adult Swim skit.

Like Pink Flamingoes, the primary function, if there is one, seems to be to titillate and aim to be offensive and counter-culture.  It's fully absurd, occasionally funny, often grossly sexual, but also very quirky and surreal.  The soundtrack is noticeably indie in its sensibilities and the acting is sub-par like you'd see in C-level horror, almost in a way that feels intentional.  I laughed out loud twice, but just because of visual gags that caught me off-guard.

In trying to break down the story or what the film is trying to say, I'm not sure I have much, but it does seem to have a distaste for women.  They are used and abused and discarded and belittled, both on-screen and off.  The ending seems to cement this, but the entire runtime yo-yos back and forth into such incredible depths of absurdity that the state of weirdness is the star of the show.

This movie is best described as a comedy, if you're mining for genre, but you'll see it listed as a horror, also, which it very much is not.  The horror elements are used for absurdity and humor but never for scares.

I go back to Pink Flamingoes, not only because of similarity, but because it really helped me understand what I was looking at.  Without that understanding of the history of gonzo-campiness, I'm not sure I'd know how to parse this.  I can't recommend this movie to anyone, but it does seem to have a place, if only as an homage to the boundaries broken before it.

[masterfins]

I just watched the two minute trailer on Youtube, and have to admit I laughed.  But at the same time I can't imagine watching the entire movie.  However, the commentors all seemed to love it.