It’s finally here! The Greasy Strangler opens today! The pitch black comedy – about “a lard-covered maniac who is killing people, for some reason” (Variety) – follows in the grand traditions of twisted Midnight movies past. Think Female Trouble, Eraser Head, El Topo… then multiply by a thousand. Rolling Stone called it “2016’s most disgusting movie.” The Guardian thinks it’s “Perhaps the The strangest, sickest and scariest midnight movie ever.” Indie Wire called it “disgusting, deviant and pleasurably weird at heart.” And Variety called it an “exercise in juvenile scatology that’s almost awesomely pure in its numbing, repetitious determination to annoy.”
The plot?
“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 between father and son for her attentions. It also signals the appearance of an oily, slimy inhuman maniac who stalks the streets at night and strangles the innocent, soon dubbed ‘The Greasy Strangler.’”
Watch the trailer below.
My favorite review though? Dangerous Minds, who raves:
Low-budget, transgressive, tasteless, hermetic, cheesy and nauseating, it’s a one-of-a-kind, jaw-dropping hilariously over-the-top mindfuck…. The rare “cult” film that manages to conceal its self-consciousness under a barrage of laughter and inspired hideousness.
In the guise of a slasher film, The Greasy Strangler is really a warped domestic comedy that deals with lots of issues–issues in the big “psychological” sense. Daddy issues, mommy issues, sex issues and explosive gastric issues. But whatever the subtext it’s all marinading in pools of vomit, jism, grease and blood. The Greasy Strangler belongs in the same bizarre world of John Waters, David Lynch, The Kuchar Brothers, and Ted V. Mikels. Movie-making that comes directly from the id to you. The meaning is in the mayhem.
Directed by British filmmaker Jim Hosking and starring Sky Elobar, Michael St. Michaels, and Elizabeth De Razzo, The Greasy Strangler is an unapologetic puke fest with a spastic lower intestinal tract and a heart of gold. Imagine a family sitcom shot deep in the bowels of Hell and you (kind of) get the picture. The Greasy Strangler puts the cleaver into Leave It To Beaver. It’s the feel bad feel good film of 2016. Murder means never having to say you’re sorry.
“Grease” is the word.
The Greasy Strangler opens today in theaters and is available to stream here. Please do check it out.