Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy introduces girl to dad…
The Greasy Strangler stalks the night.
From the moment we are first introduced to Ronnie and his son Brayden I knew this movie was going to be special. There’s a heightened reality and otherworldly disconnect to the universe they inhabit, from the stilted dialogue to their garish clothing and the disjointed characters they interact with. If David Lynch and The Mighty Boosh had a disgusting baby, raised by Napoleon Dynamite then you may end up with something as special as The Greasy Strangler.
Michael St. Michaels gives a grotesquely captivating performance as the monstrously well-endowed, titular serial murder. He lies, cheats and seduces with an air of indignant pomp, slathers everything in viscous grease and kills to sate his urges in an animalistic rage. His Ronnie is Klaus Kinski by way of Peter Stringfellow with the dress sense of a mescaline fuelled Swedish crime drama. He is both chief villain and a superb anti-hero. He’s crass, cruel and devilishly brilliant in equal measure.
The absolute standout performance comes from Sky Elobar as put-upon protagonist Brayden. There’s a pathetic, downtrodden fragility to this cartoonish sad-sack. Talked down to by his father and shown no modicum of respect, Elobar imbues the protagonist with infantilised innocence that makes his burgeoning romance with Elizabeth De Razzo’s Janet oddly sweet. This sweetness doesn’t make the utterly grotesque sex scenes any easier to swallow. Played for laughs, these darkly comedic forays into grubby eroticism are as wince-worthy as the numerous Greasy Strangler murders. Sex and death linked in all their horrific and indulgent glory.
An integral part of the overall texture of this peculiar movie is the phenomenal score from Andrew Hung (Fuck Buttons). Squelchy, pneumatic and repetitively anthemic, each electronically produced earworm burrows into your brain and even after the moist, pungent grime of the film’s visuals are scrubbed away, Hung’s themes offer a reminder of the feast of filth you’ve experienced.
It’s clear that The Greasy Strangler won’t be everybody’s idea of entertainment. This is most definitely a “Marmite Movie”. Some will find it repulsive and nauseating, while others will see this as hilariously quotable and weirdly engaging from beginning to end. For my sins, I definitely fall into the latter category and don’t mind going on record to say director Jim Hosking’s debut has become one of my favourite films of 2016. Considering Elijah Wood’s production company SpectreVision also produced the outstanding A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, I’m going to have to keep a watchful eye out for both Hosking and SpectreVision’s future features.
The Greasy Strangler has a limited cinematic run starting Friday 7th October and launches on DVD/ Blu-Ray Monday 10th.
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