For my third Stephen King film, I picked Thinner (1996), which is kind of a mixed bag for me. The novel is one that I read over and over and over again to the point of it falling apart because I just thought the story was so damn cool, but the translation to screen is a little bumpy. Mr. Tom Holland is the director of this one too, and he co-wrote the screenplay adaptation with Michael McDowell (who helped craft the screenplays of both Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas!).
The story of Thinner is pretty basic, and somewhat chilling (at least, in the book it seemed so): overweight, obnoxious lawyer Billy Halleck (John Robert Burke) accidentally runs over a gypsy woman in his car and kills her — while his wife is giving him head — and then uses his connections to get out of being punished for it. The gypsy’s ancient father decides to takes matters into his own wrinkled hands, by cursing Halleck with something that causes him to lose weight rapidly no matter how much he eats.
It doesn’t take Billy that long to figure out what’s up, and once he does, he spends the entire movie running around looking for a way to break the curse — and, and ogling hot gypsy Kari Wuhrer, but who wouldn’t? It’s a little boring, but since the whole movie only runs 93 minutes it’s okay. The best/funniest parts involve Wuhrer and her slingshot, and Joe Mantega as mob boss Richard Ginelli, who’s also an expert on Gypsies. Or something. (more…)
