#4 - Tusk (2014)
(dir. Kevin Smith)
Wallace, the host of a successful comedy podcast, travels to Canada to for an interview. When his original guest falls through, he decides to answer a strange personal ad from a lonely old man named Howard Howe. He expects to listen to some seafaring stories, hoping for some good material for his show, but instead - you guessed it - he gets surgically transformed into a walrus.
I'm still slightly in shock that this movie exists at all. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before, and not just because of the walrus thing. This is a really absurd and hilarious dark comedy, where the biggest joke of all is that the movie you are watching is real - it's such a ridiculously silly idea, but Smith sticks to his guns and follows through on it (and then some). This is not a comedy about getting turned into a walrus - it's a horror movie about getting turned into a walrus that is incredibly hilarious just by virtue of its existence.
That's not to say that there aren't jokes or funny parts in the film itself, because this is one of the funniest films I've seen in a very long time. The highlight is Johnny Depp (who is credited as "Guy Lapointe"), who gives what is possibly the funniest performance of his career as the French-Canadian detective hunting down Howe. Michael Parks is also great as Howe, who is both sinister and completely bonkers at the same time.
This will be a very divisive film. I thought it was brilliant, and it had me laughing harder than any comedy in recent memory, but a lot of people are going to completely hate it (although, I can't imagine anyone hating Depp in this role). Tusk is destined to be a cult classic.
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