There’s been a lot of buzz about the gross-out spectacular The Greasy Strangler – weirdest movie of the year, blah blah. But the first feature from British writer-director Jim Hosking is really pretty easy to deconstruct – it’s manufactured to become popular at the midnight cult movie shoes, joining the rotation along with Rocky Horror, Eraserhead, The Room, etc. The Greasy Strangler will draw in the midnight crowd with its meals prepared with industrial grease, the prosthetic penises of varying sizes and a heavy dose of sex between naked grotesques. It’s made for audience participation with signature lines for the audience to repeat along with the characters, like “You’re a bullshit artist” and “Hootie tootie disco cutie”.
This is not to say there aren’t some clever touches in The Greasy Strangler. Believe me, you’ve never seen a car wash used in this way before. And there’s a priceless male disco outfit with a cutout in exactly the wrong place.
The plot is pretty simple: a virginal nerd boy (Sky Elobar of Don Verdean) is living with his omni-disgusting father (Michael St. Michaels), a cranky cretin who constantly demands copious amounts of grease added on to his food – even movie popcorn butter and street vendor chili dogs. Will the younger man finger his dad as the local serial killer, the Greasy Strangler? And will the father alienate the affections of his son’s new sweetheart (Elizabeth Del Razzo)? Nightly, the Greasy Strangler immerses himself in a 55 gallon drum of grease and then zombie-walks through town in search of victims.
If you are not entertained by the epically disgusting, this movie is not for you – after all, that’s the whole point. The Greasy Strangler can be streamed from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. Or you can catch it in the decades of midnight screenings ahead.
