Sometimes you watch a film. Sometimes a film happens to you. The latter is far less common, but when it does occur, it often makes for an unforgettable experience, regardless of whether you love it or hate it.
The Greasy Strangler is not a film you watch. It’s a film that happens to you.
A quasi would-be love child between Rubber and Wrong director Quentin Dupieux and Adult Swim icons Tim and Eric, The Greasy Strangler is earnestly, joyfully, and relentlessly insane — a smorgasbord of absurdism, gross-out humor, and violence so purposely stupid that it barely registers as offensive. (Oh, and let’s not forget all that disco.) Odd characters wearing odd clothes, saying and doing odd things, and looking like every repulsive “people of Walmart” meme you ever saw — that’s The Greasy Strangler.
Making his feature film directorial debut, Jim Hosking had absolutely no interest in transitioning from the world of short films into a project a bit more traditional. Along with co-writer Toby Harvard, Hosking has created one of the oddest and quirkiest films in recent and not-so-recent memory, filling it with a collection of absolutely loathsome and selfish characters engaging in a Fight Club-ish love/sex triangle so nauseating but conflictingly funny that it actually has the power to make every sexual act known to man kind of silly, and almost an embarrassing activity in which to engage even for the super beautiful.
And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the patriarch of this queasy threesome, Big Ronnie (a very brave Michael St. Michaels) just also happens to cover himself in thick sheens of homemade grease before taking to the streets to strangle an array of people who apparently had it coming until their eyes pop out of their skulls like Judge Doom in the finale of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The choosing of Ronnie’s victims are hilariously superficial, and despite being the walking humanoid opposite of Hannibal Lecter’s esteem, grace, and opulence, the good doctor would very much approve of Ronnie’s going after those who exhibited rudeness. There’s no motive to Ronnie’s choice of victim beyond they were dicks to him — either by their nature, or in response to how much of a dick Big Ronnie had been to them during a previous interaction. The motivelessness of Ronnie’s murders would hinder literally any other kind of film, but this is The Greasy Strangler we’re talking about — it simply doesn’t matter.
Caught in the middle is Big Ronnie’s son, Big Brayden (Sky Elobar, a doppelganger for Eric Wareheim of the before mentioned Tim and Eric comedy duo), who wrestles with whether or not to report to the authorities that his father is “The Greasy Strangler” — that is until he meets his “girlfriend” Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo), after whom Big Ronnie also begins lusting. It’s when the love triangle portion of the conflict comes into play that Big Brayden decides it’s time to act.
And so many old, red-tipped, uncircumcised dicks (“it looks like a big mouse head!”) will be flashed.
Attempting to properly review The Greasy Strangler to an unsuspecting readership is like trying to describe a Bosch painting to a person born blind. You can try — and it’ll take forever — but there’s no use. The only way to appreciate the majestic lunacy of The Greasy Strangler is to see it for yourself.
Do you enjoy the exploits of Adult Swim? An unfettered fan of Check It Out with Dr. Steve Brule? Were you fascinated by the plotless/beplotted killer tire horror satire Rubber? Do you have a strong stomach and enjoy the sight of plump bodies in all kinds of sex positions? The Greasy Strangler might be your new favorite film; it might also be the absolute worst thing you ever see in your life, leaving you cursing the people who made it, distributed it, and recommended it (like me). A very adult version of Napoleon Dynamite but without the irritation (depending on your particular brand of humor, that is), let The Greasy Strangler happen to you and make up your own mind.
Just don’t forget to shower in the car wash afterward.
Just don’t forget to shower in the car wash afterward.
