Every day, the same questions pop up over and over again: why are all the movies the same? Why can’t they break out of their formula? Why can’t anybody commit to breaking the formulas that exist. Yet, when confronted with something genre breaking, audiences recoil in revulsion and fear. Singular visions that break every single rule of “good” filmmaking and defy expectations and explanation are met with equal parts shock, awe, and dismissal. Like a particularly perverse sketch from the minds of Tim and Eric, The Greasy Strangler is a genre breaking movie that absolutely destroys the concept of good taste, plot, nostalgia, or normalcy.
By day, Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) and his son Brayden (Sky Elobar) run a disco walking tour. Dressed in ill-fitting Pepto Bismol horrorshows, they take groups of miserable unsuspecting tourists around the city lamenting the death of an era. The problem is that Ronnie and Brayden have all the charisma of a bucket of 2-day-old vomit, and customers who complain find Ronnie abrasively shouting cruel obscenities at the, while Brayden looks on. On one of these tours, as Ronnie has his pants down in the background, Brayden meets cute with Janet (Elizabeth DeRazzo), one of the customers.
By night, Ronnie eats a bunch of thick grease-laden food that causes him to morph into a naked grease-covered monster who strangles people who have pissed him off during the day. Given his hair trigger temperament, everybody could be murdered. After the murder, Ronnie goes through a car wash to clean the grease and blood off his body, and goes home in a purple leisure suit with the crotch cut out. Meanwhile, Brayden continues dating Janet while Ronnie is off killing people, which turns into the formulaic relationship schism.
Even though the plot sounds like typical 1980s dysfunctional family slasher film, writer-director Jim Hosking executes this like a movie unearthed from the subconscious of a horror-obsessed 11-year-old boy who just saw his first nudie magazine. Genitals and bodily functions are repeated so often they become motifs. Ronnie and Brayden focus on each other’s dick size. Rubberized special effects provide copious amounts of gore. Whole conversations consist of Ronnie and Brayden shouting variations of “Bullshit Artist!” at each other. The color design claws out your eyes, the acting is devoid of humanity or human understanding, and stupidity stands in for clever. Andrew Hung’s soundtrack is what you would get if a MIDI-based fart machine and a calliope had a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome.
But, Hosking and his team are so committed to this singularly crude, awful, complete waste of celluloid that the film turns into a genuine piece of surrealist anti-comedy. Every terrible decision – script, soundtrack, lighting, cinematography, set design, acting, costumes, etc – works so perfectly together they make the best piece of shit you’ve never seen. Unlike so many bad movies (The Room), every bad decision here is intentional and adds to the chaotic final product. Jim Hosking has such a level of control over this style that The Greasy Strangler demands to be respected, even as it shoves immaturity in your face in every frame. Regardless of how much enjoyment is derived from the movie, and that will vary from person to person, you can’t say it’s not the same as the other movies.