The Los Angeles-set tale follows Ronnie, a man who runs a Disco Walking tour along with his browbeaten son, Brayden. When a sexy, alluring woman comes to take the tour, it begins a competition betw...
Some things just can’t be forgotten. Some things just can’t be unseen. Once you’ve watched “The Greasy Strangler,” it will continue to haunt your dreams. This film sets a new bar for deviant, depraved, shocking, bizarro cinema. If there’s ever been a film that I could definitively say is “not for everyone,” this is it. No, really folks: please heed my warnings.
Still reading this review, sicko? If so, this film should be right up your alley. In what I can only describe as an exceptionally filthy mash-up of Jared Hess meets John Waters, “The Greasy Strangler” tells the story of Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) and his adult son Brayden (Sky Elobar). The duo lead a ridiculously awful disco walking tour for pathetic tourists in Los Angeles (one tour stop includes a doorway where “Kool from Kool and the Gang” once stood). When the men host the plump and pretty Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo) on one of their tours, the two begin to fight for her affections — and the murderous Greasy Strangler alter-ego is unleashed.
This homage to great B-movies explores the mother of all daddy issues in the most reprehensible and repellent ways possible. There’s plenty to make even those with the most sturdy of sensibilities wince (think “Pink Flamingos,” “Mondo Trasho,” and “Multiple Maniacs” taken to the extreme). The film is unrated and filled with oddball nudity (fake penises are showcased for a quite hysterical comedic effect), explicit sex, bloody violence, and strange cussing. Oh, and there’s plenty of vomit-inducing grease eating too.
The movie starts off strong and is genuinely quirky and downright hilarious. There’s the deadpan dialogue delivery from the actors, who are purposely giving really, really bad readings (that’s the very core idea behind camp, and this film does it correctly in every way possible). The costumes are simple but played for laughs (matching pink vintage sweaters, tight underwear punctuated with bulging beer bellies, and a revealing disco suit for Big Ronnie that will have you in stitches). The original score is straightforward, uncomplicated and repetitive, but it’s the ideal match for the content (and it’s been stuck in my head for days). The absurdist humor works too: the repetition goes from funny to annoying and back to funny again in both the dialogue and offbeat situations.
Director and co-writer Jim Hosking has created a blazingly original work of art with memorable (dare I say even lovable) characters. How unfortunate it is that the film eventually devolves into a crude, shocking affair with lots of gross-out situations presented simply for the joy of shock schlock. This movie is both great but also awful, a contradiction in its own right.
Much like the characters in the film, my mind was blown by this nearly indescribable movie. You’ve never seen anything like this, guaranteed. “The Greasy Strangler” is instantly quotable (“Hootie! Tootie! Disco! Cutie!“), abnormally gross, completely filthy, unconditionally weird, and impossible to forget. I could see this becoming a true cult classic, and it should have very long legs on the midnight film circuit for years to come.
