Kevin Smith’s 2014 horror comedy stars Michael Parks, Justin Long, Johnny Depp, Genesis Rodriguez, Haley Joel Osment, and a few others as the film’s small cast. Kevin Smith actually revealed that the movie came to be because of one of the episodes of his podcast called SModcast, where he had been discussing a story similar to that of the final movie with another guest on the show, Scott Mosier.
The movie managed to stick to the horror vibe that it was aiming for but seemed to lack a lot in its tone and plot. It got to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival despite its mixed reviews and now enjoys somewhat of a cult status among fans who find the movie both disturbing and enjoyable.
The film, Tusk, is about an extremely arrogant podcaster who has to travel all the way to Canada for an interview. While in Canada, he ends up meeting a strange sailor, a retired one, with a peculiar obsession with a walrus, which he calls Mr. Tusk.
What is strange about the sailor is that he is alluring and inviting as well, he seems to have some terrible ideas for the walrus, and Wallace, the podcaster, has full plans of finding what they are.
Smith revealed that he just wanted to put out a small movie that felt deranged in some aspects but had no sexual or political meaning behind it. He did not want it to be an indie movie but just a weird film with a seriously screwed plot.
While the movie did get mixed reviews, with many admitting that the movie was disgusting and grossing them out, such reviews only confirm the fact that Kevin Smith managed to make the movie he was aiming for.
The movie is pointless and feels uncomfortably long, but it also manages to make the viewers feel strange and disgusted. Smith achieved what he wanted, and the movie has, years after release, found a devoted cult fandom for itself.
Is Tusk Based On A True Story?
The movie found for itself the right kind of audience who appreciate now more than ever, but it also left a lot of us confused when it boldly claimed at the beginning that it was based on a true story. At the start, when the text ‘Based on a True Story’ pops up, the makers also very cleverly introduce a cunning laughing track in its background.
So, no, the movie is not based on a true story, no matter what it claims. Nobody has ever been turned into a walrus in exchange for a room, especially not in the manner shown in the movie.
Kevin Smith was heard discussing during one of his podcast episodes titled ‘The Walrus and The Carpenter’, about an ad that he saw where an individual was offering a room for free to anybody who was willing to dress up a walrus for at least two hours every day.
The ad turned out to be fake and was actually made up by a writer called Chris Parkinson, living in Brighton, England. While the ad only stated dressing up as a walrus, the movie definitely took some creative liberties to make things more gross. The fake advertisement that Kevin Smith found on Gumtree UK, a British website, gave him a eureka moment which led him to discuss it in his podcast and eventually turn it into a movie.
Chris Parkinson, the old guy who posted the ad, admitted that he did so as just a joke and that he did not think that things would get this big. The movie hilariously claims that it is based on a true story, but it is definitely not; it has just taken slight inspiration from a fake advertisement and has exaggerated it tenfolds.
The ad that the movie claims to be based on also does not specify the gender of the person who posted it, so Smith let his creativity run free only to come up with a lonely old man with a little crazy in his head as the one with a walrus obsession. And while the said ad only mentioned dressing up as a walrus, Kevin Smith took one step forward and landed directly on the idea of changing the entire human anatomy to match that of a walrus as the retired sailor’s idea.
The movie ended up being weird, creepy, and all things disturbing but also managed to find for itself an equally scary audience who seemed to have taken a cult-like liking to this horror-comedy.
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