THINNER (PG-13)
Director: Tom Holland
Stars: Robert John Burke, Joe Mantegna, Michael Constantine, Lucinda Jenney, Joy Lenz, Sam Freed, Daniel Von Bargen, John Horton, Kari Wuhrer
Stephen King's name in the title is something of a misnomer, as the prolific and popular author actually wrote this off beat tale of superstition and an obsessive quest for vengeance and justice under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. This is the alias that he often used when he wanted to write stories that were different in nature from the usual ghouls and goblins and nightmarish creatures for which he had become famous. It was also under the Bachman alias that King wrote The Running Man, which became the basis of the successful Schwarzenegger movie.
The script was co-written by horror novelist Michael McDowell (who also wrote Beetlejuice) and veteran horror director Tom Holland (Psycho II, the original Child's Play, etc), who has also adapted a couple of other King novels for the screen. This adaptation is somewhat less successful, despite having some heavy weight talent working behind the camera.
Grotesquely overweight lawyer Billy Halleck (Hal Hartley regular Robert John Burke hidden and virtually unrecognisable under a prosthetic body suit) accidentally runs over an elderly gypsy woman while he is momentarily distracted from his driving. The chief of police and a local judge, who don't like gypsies anyway, conspire to cover up the crime, clearing Halleck of any blame in the tragedy. The dead woman's father, an elderly and spooky looking gypsy (Michael Constantine, Michael Keaton's father in My Life), places a curse on Halleck, uttering the words "Thinner" as he does so. Halleck starts losing weight although not his appetite, much to the initial pleasure of his wife and daughter, but soon he becomes worried as he seems to be rapidly fading away no matter what he does.
But as he sheds body fat Halleck also sheds his moral inhibitions and is slowly transformed into a nasty piece of work who becomes violently suspicious of his wife and whose behaviour is dangerously erratic. He becomes even more worried when he learns that his two colleagues have also been cursed, and that their bodies are deformed and disintegrating. Their deaths will a little quicker but no less painful and inevitable than Halleck's. The only way to stop the dreaded effects of the curse is to find the gypsy elder and force him to remove it. With the help of a mobster friend (Joe Mantegna) Halleck sets out to take on the gypsies, and it quickly becomes a case of superior firepower versus superstition.
But in this cautionary moral tale of revenge, what goes around eventually comes around, and Thinner has an unexpected sting in its tail that makes the film seem like an extended feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone. Holland, a devotee of Hitchcock, plays Thinner mainly as a psychological thriller, aiming more for moody atmospherics and a slowly increasing air of uneasiness rather than outright thrills, and this slow paced and uneven film will certainly not be to everyone's tastes. The real credit for any shivers generated by this low key horror film surely belongs with the wonderful special effects created by Academy Award winning make up artist Greg Cannom, that depict the hideously deformed and decaying skin of Halleck's colleagues as they waste away as well as several other gruesome moments.
Author King himself contributes a brief cameo as a pharmacist, although his embarrassing non-performance demonstrates that he should stick to doing what he does best - writing.