So Bad, It’s Good: Horror you shouldn’t be sleeping on- “Thinner”

From it’s opening line: “Gypsy caravan… honest to god gypsies…”, I start smiling, as I know I’m in for a real treat. The lack of acting chops oozes from our leading man, preparing us for the 1996 shit show Walmart bin find that is Stephen King’s “Thinner.”

Let’s dive in. This movie has everything…

An obvious fat suit, a gypsy who looks like Shania Twain, an actual teenaged Bethany Joy Lenz, (not the 32 year old BJL who portrayed a high schooler in One Tree Hill) a touch of classic misogyny, and the icing on the cake: good ol’ fashioned fat shaming. So much fat shaming. I mean an obsessive amount of fat shaming. And from everyone around him. Ie: “there’s just so much more to life than food” his wife says breathily while giving him a handjob on the highway. She follows that not-weird-at-all act by making obsessive spreads sheets, tracking his weight loss while making comments that don’t just imply that she wants him to lose weight.

My favorite part is the budget. I can only imagine there wasn’t one. It reads like they thought there would be some sort of magic filter put on after the fact, so that no one would notice that the amount of effort put into making the lead character fat, was that of a middle school play. The research he put into being a man triple his body mass, must have also been lacking since he over does a sort of mocking waddle, while also just rushing around like any everyday morning jogger can.

Here’s the premise for those who don’t know. Billy Halleck is a lawyer who accidentally hits and kills a gypsy woman with his car, but gets off for the crime, by knowing the judge.

The gypsy woman’s husband, outraged by the outcome and seeking revenge for his wife, puts a curse on Billy, by ambushing him outside, brushing his cheek and dramatically uttering the word “thinner” to him. He then starts to lose a crazy amount of weight at an alarming pace. And by that I mean, the next thirty minutes we watch him stuff his stupid face and talk about how he’s losing weight too fast, while verbally abusing his wife and kid. We learn that it’s obviously the work of gypsy magic, as he meets with the judge and police chief, both of whom were also cursed by the gypsy, leading them to kill themselves. After some more movie, the gypsy man agrees to help, by mixing Billy’s blood into a strawberry pie, telling him that if he gives the pie to someone to eat, they will die, but his curse will be broken. He then urges Billy to do the honorable thing and eat his own pie. If you’re going to watch only one minute of this film, I recommend this scene of the man going on and on about Billy eating his own pie. #worthit.

There’s some business about Billy believing his wife is unfaithful, because of course there is, and whether or not it’s true doesn’t really matter as they’re both terrible people. He gives his wife the cursed pie and wakes up delighted that she is dead, but in a not so shocking turn of events, finds out his daughter also had some pie. I’d love to know what kind of household this is, where I can leave my dessert around and not expect everyone else to eat it. His grief quickly ends when the man he thought his wife was sleeping with appears at the door, and turns into satisfaction as he invites him in for some pie. End credits.

Wow. I really want pie now.

This movie’s bad, but I’ve enjoyed it a handful of times, making it a staple in my so bad it’s good library. Enjoy, and share your own guilty pleasures with me in the comments.

Til Next Time,

🔪Madame Of Horror