Our story starts in the world of the upper-class people, where obese lawyer Billy Halleck lives in a typical upper-class house in Connecticut together with his wife Heidi and their daughter Linda. Days go by as usual, where Billy recently defended the Mafia boss Richie “The Hammer“ Ginelli, because that guy could never have actually killed anyone, right? Innocent as a lamb! So Billy celebrates together with the Mafia boss as yet another murder charge has been acquitted. And it becomes obvious that Billy’s favorite means of celebration is eating, he’s literally obsessed with food and looks the part. While driving home one night, after berating him for his eating disorder, his wife has the sudden bright idea to give him a blowjob while he’s behind the wheel. What could possibly go wrong…well, it ends with Billy running over an elderly Romani woman named Suzanne Lempke from the traveling Romani carnival that recently arrived in town. The woman dies, and you can probably already guess where this goes: the upper-class lawyer gets help from his close friends Judge Cary Rossington and police chief Duncan Hopley, making sure he won’t spend a single second in prison or face any consequences whatsoever.
Now, horror movies have taught us over and over that you do not mess with the Romani people, so what happens next is inevitable: Suzanne’s devastated father puts a curse on Billy when waiting for him outside the courthouse, touching his cheek and simply says the word “thinner“…and that’s that. Definitely a much more easy and laidback way to put a curse on someone compared to what happened in Drag Me to Hell. And Billy…well, he believes he’s been blessed rather than cursed. He can suddenly keep eating like a pig and surprisingly lose weight! And he keeps eating…and keeps losing weight. His wife becomes worried it might be a sign of cancer, but his tests comes back fine. As Billy gets literally thinner and thinner, he starts realizing that something ominous is going on here. And when he also finds out that his friends, the judge and the police chief, are suffering from strange illnesses as well, he can no longer deny that what seemed to be pure luck at first turned out to be a diet from death.
Thinner is a horror film from 1996, directed by Tom Holland (most known for directing Fright Night from 1985 and Child’s Play from 1988). It is based on a Stephen King novel from 1984 with the same name, which he actually wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The movie did not get well received upon release, and got mostly negative reviews. Now, as many Stephen King adaptions go, this is by far any kind of masterpiece for sure, but it’s entertaining, and that’s enough for me.
The story starts off rather whimsically, where you can’t quite catch the tone. There’s a dark story underneath but also it’s rather goofy, and you can’t help but feeling the comedy-tone all over the place with Robert John Burke (who plays Billy) wearing that fatsuit. The effects aren’t that bad, though, they’re perfect for a campy little thing like this. Classified as a body horror movie, it’s mostly Billy’s friends that go through the most extreme changes, though, and while Billy gets, well, thinner, we don’t see him end up like the guy in The Machinist or anything even remotely close. Thankfully, I might add.
As for the morals of the story, there’s no doubt who’s the real villain here. It’s not exactly subtle, either, with the movie opening with him getting a Mafia boss free from (yet another) murder charge. Billy isn’t sympathetic, and neither are his friends who are more than obviously in on everything. Corruption and camaraderie goes hand in hand, and we are not supposed to think they’re the good guys. They’re a bunch of arrogant upper-class a-holes who think their lives and well-being are more important than others. “White Man from Town“ is an a-hole. And, while you may not think he “deserved“ to have a curse put upon him, you can’t exactly sympathize that much with him either, especially as the story goes along…because the whimsical tone really does take a shift and turns everything into a much more gloomy revenge-fueled story. Despite going a tad bit darker than the initial setup would make you believe, it’s still fun, even with its rather bleak ending.
Like the majority of Stephen King movies, Thinner is one you watch when you want something silly and campy, where you can just lay back and enjoy on a lazy evening with some popcorn or candy.
Director: Tom Holland
Writers: Michael McDowell, Tom Holland
Country & year: USA, 1996
Actors: Robert John Burke, Lucinda Jenney, Bethany Joy Lenz, Time Winters, Howard Erskine, Joe Mantegna, Terrence Garmey, Kari Wuhrer, Michael Constantine
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117894/
