The Greasy Strangler

2016 horror comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A father and son fight over a girl who took the disco tour they run. Meanwhile, a greasy strangler is running around greasily strangling people. It's the dad. He's the greasy strangler.

I had heard about this somehow and then saw it pop up on one of my favorite websites--366 Weird Movies. Itching to see it for a while, I didn't think I'd be able to find it until some sketchy person decided to put it on Youtube and subject more innocent people to its shenanigans, but then it showed up on Amazon Prime.

I didn't think I knew the writer/director, Jim Hosking, but here's a mention of him on my blog:

That's from the anthology movie ABC's of Death 2. And it doesn't seem very nice. I hope he didn't Google himself and end up seeing that.

This is a tough movie to rate because I actually liked it very much while knowing that most people who watch this thing will not. Hosking, you have to imagine, accomplished everything he wanted to with The Greasy Strangler. The movie's weird in all the right places--especially with a great "What the fuck just happened?" ending that might have the worst special effects I've ever seen--and it's very funny in some parts. It's the same sort of absurd humor that you'd see on one of those Adult Swim shows--Tim and Eric fans, I'm probably talking to you. Those definitely aren't for everybody, but that sort of "anti-comedy," a term I'm sure no person trying to make comedy would like, is the same sort of thing going on here. Characters have inane conversations, nothing makes a lot of sense, there are repeated lines or motifs that aren't funny when they first appear and then grow really tiresome and then somehow magically become almost funny, and there's a lot of stuff in here that's just plain gross. But it's all almost elegantly trashy, and Hosking creates this world--a barren Los Angeles inhabited only by human beings (or pig men) who happen to be in this movie. It's like an alternate reality where you don't know what happened to lead the characters to where they're at and really are terrified to know.

I probably didn't need to see his ass or the fake penis he sports, but I did like the performance of Michael St. Michaels as the dad. Michael St. Michaels. That's his name.