The Greasy Strangler

I've had a full night to think about "The Greasy Strangler" and I'm still just utterly flabbergasted. To be honest, I've pretty much given up on trying to develop any kind of understanding as to what the hell passed before my eyes. Is there a deeper meaning to it all? Maybe? I have no idea. "The Greasy Strangler" is one of the most baffling, weird, gross films that I can remember seeing. The weirdest part is, I think I kind of liked it.

At a base level "The Greasy Strangler" is about a supremely dysfunctional father and son. Big Brayden and Big Ronnie (yes, a lot of people get the descriptor "Big" added to their names) live in a house that is on the verge of falling down. When the two aren't schlepping around their hole of home in little to no clothing, eating some of the most disgusting food that I have ever seen on camera, they run a "disco tour" of their local town, a town that seems vaguely Californian and decidedly removed from time. But Big Ronnie has a secret, or, I suppose, just a thing that no one believes when he tells them; he likes to cover himself in grease and strangle people.

That's the general plot of the film, but none of it really matters. "The Greasy Strangler" isn't a film in the conventional sense. The story has no real structure, and often just feels like a series of vaguely connected jokes. The script seems cobbled together of improvised bits, yet the often stilted acting, especially from Michael St. Michaels as Ronnie, leaves me to believe that every last word was written on the page. This is all the more impressive the more that you think about it, as to fill pages of a screenplay with your two lead characters yelling "Bullshit artist!" at one another with the confidence that writers Toby Harvard and Jim Hosking possess sounds more like the musings of a man slowly losing his mind than anything approaching reality. In this way, I was often left just quietly amazed throughout "The Greasy Strangler," because director Jim Hosking executes the film like it's completely normal, despite pushing the limits of the definition of weird.

Regardless of how you ultimately feel about "The Greasy Strangler," it deserves credit for going as full bore as it does. Not a moment in the film comes off as faked or disingenuous. Every last member of the cast, even those that are decidedly amateur, is completely onboard for this cavalcade of mayhem. They spit out words that no person that wants to be taken seriously as a human being should utter with a casual flip. Without truly allowing us to get to know any character in particular, Hosking has somehow made us care about what happens to them, even if that care amounts to hoping that they meet an appropriately grisly end. I've been trying to figure out just how he did it for hours, but at this point I've just accepted that Hosking is some kind of insane filmmaker with an undercurrent of genius.

This is not going to be a film that pleases the majority of audiences. It will inspire walkouts, lead to audience members feeling queasy (I do not recommend eating anywhere near it), and will be viewed as so awful by some that they will passionately hate it. But for those people that give it its time, that sacrifice any sense of morals to Hosking and his ridiculous vision, you will be rewarded with a film that you will stumble over yourself trying to explain to friends. It most certainly isn't a film that you can recommend to any group of people. It exists as something of a dare, like a terrible smelling fart that you coax your friends to smell.

In watching "The Greasy Strangler" I discovered a new place between fear and hilarity that I didn't even know could exist. I laughed at depravity and oddity like I never have before. It confused me, it scared me, and it had my sides hurting from laughter. "The Greasy Strangler" isn't a film that you can categorize as good or bad, largely because it bucks your traditional understanding of what a film is. Writer-director Jim Hosking seems to do everything the wrong way. The costumes are unlike anything I've seen people wear, shots often linger on moments well past the point of understanding or common sense, and much of the special effects and makeup look like they are made of paper mache by a second grader.

It is gross and weird, seemingly only to test the limits of its audience. It's like the early work of John Waters, if Waters did a whole lot (more?) acid. It is less a film and more the terrifying fever dream of a stressed out stray dog living in a failing thrift store. For as strange and counter to understanding it entirely is, if you approach "The Greasy Strangler" with an exceptionally open mind, and dispense with anything approaching a moral hang-up, then you will find an enjoyment that you will judge yourself for having. If you can't do that, then don't go anywhere near "The Greasy Strangler."