Episode 10: Tusk

In this episode, we analyze the movie "Tusk", directed by Kevin Smith and starring Justin Long and Haley Joel Osment. This is the second to last episode in our A24 series.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Trader warning. This episode contains discussion about body dismemberment, death, and abuse. Listener discretion is advised. There was a cycle. There was an assistant.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

According to the Before we get into the nitty-and-gritty. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Split Screen. My name is Kyle Clark.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

And I'm Angelica Clark.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And again, this is a podcast where we do deep dives into the minds and lives of horror movie villains, suspense thrillers, and true crime stories.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

And I am a licensed clinical therapist, and I will essentially be diagnosing or psychoanalyzing the main character of whatever movie, book, or TV show we are discussing.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

And today, ladies and gentlemen, we are diving into a movie that feels less like a studio script and more like high-stakes Internet Dare. We are talking about Kevin Smith's 2014 body horror comedy Tusk. Now, before we even touch anything of what we're going to discuss, we have to kind of talk about the origin story of this film. And when I learned why this film was even created, it actually made me enjoy the movie a lot more than I did.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I didn't think that was possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

And what I mean by that, and we'll just be completely transparent, nothing on Kevin Smith or anybody who had a part in this film, in my opinion, it is a terrible film.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

That's awful. But again, this is probably the semifinal to our A24 series. So that's another thing, too, is for an A24 film. It's kind of shocking how bad this movie was, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Well, let me see if I can't change your mind a little bit. Okay. This entire movie was actually born on a podcast, specifically episode 259 of Kevin Smith's own podcast. He and his co-host read a fake online ad from a homeowner offering a room for rent for free under the bizarre condition that you wear a walrus costume. That is the only reason why this movie exists. It was a conversation they had on a podcast, and it turned into a hundred-minute A24 featured film.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

That's I'm sorry. That's that's freaking funny.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

The fact that this whole movie exists because there was a human being out there.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Why? People are weird. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

It's crazy, but it's like that makes more sense now. So for those of you who haven't seen this film, to kind of give you an idea of what we're discussing, the movie starts off by following Wallace Brighton, played brilliantly, as I may say, and bravely by Justin Long, mainly because to what happens to Justin Long in this film. And sidebar, you have to be brave when you're rocking a mustache like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Porn stash, yeah. I mean, you would know you've had one.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Well, there's more distance from both ends of his mustache than there is between me and our new house. But with that being said, Justin Long and his career has greatly changed the horror community for the absolute best, with his role in Jeepers Creepers kind of setting off the tone for what ends up becoming a really good creature film. Not necessarily a horror film. Wallace um is a widely unlikable, arrogant podcaster who travels to Canada to interview an internet sensation when unfortunately the person he goes to talk to and interview unalived himself, and realistically, all Wallace was trying to do in this film was just make fun of people to get laughs so that his podcast can get more listens so he can make more money. So before we get too deep into that, what what were your initial thoughts when you finally sat down?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

What the fuck? The entire time. My brain is just like this is like human centipede. But like on steroids. Like the human centipede was bad, but I've I I honestly I don't I don't know. I feel like this one's like right up there with the human centipede.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

I'm I will I will definitely say on my standpoint, this film was way better than Human Centipede. Um it when it comes to the actual plot of the film, Human Centipede, on the other hand has no plot. It really doesn't. It it's just a film that's supposed to make you feel gross on the inside. That's all Human Centipede is meant to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

But like Tusk was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

It's it's a horror comedy. It's meant to be funny, like it's meant to just be a joke. And then once I realized that this film was a joke, that was talked about on Kevin Smith's podcast, it changes the whole view of the film for me. Now that I know it's supposed to just be an actual joke, I'm okay with how things ended up. I'm okay with how things started to portray themselves inside this film. But I mean, throughout the whole thing, I just so that you guys are aware, typically we watched the same film multiple times during researching.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah, not this time. We were like, nope, one's enough.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

We we got enough info from the first time.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

So if you've never seen Tusk, here's a little rundown. And it's okay, we're gonna do spoilers because you know the movie's over a decade old, so you know, it's not our fault you haven't watched it yet. Um basically this guy goes to Canada to interview someone who hurt himself on a video and they thought it was funny, so they're gonna put it on their podcast. And their podcast is a about like Justin Long's character goes and meets weird people and brings it back to Haley Joel Osmond's character and talks about it on their podcast. And like while he was in Canada, he didn't get to see the first guy because the guy unlived himself, but then he goes to the bathroom and there's this ad from somebody by the name of Howard Howe, and he is looking for someone. Um I can't remember exactly what the ad was, but basically he's luring people in there, and he Justin Long's like, Oh, this guy sounds freaky.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

He in the ad, it's he talks about that he is very old and he doesn't have a lot of money, but what he does have is experience, and he wanted somebody to share his stories with.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, that's right. So Justin goes, talks to him, he offers him some tea, and I'm immediately oh, that shit's poison. He like starts talking about this story about how he's shipwrecked and how this walrus saved his life. By that he means like he he ate the walrus to stay alive until he was rescued, and his name was Mr. Tusk.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

That's what he named the walrus, and so he literally turns Justin Long into a walrus, like so this is where it takes human centipede kind of vibes, where he doesn't just put Justin Long in a costume, he actually modifies his body to fit the inside of what looks like would have came directly out of Ed Geen's garage. Even one point in the film, if you're really paying attention to the body structure of Justin Long's character or Mr. Tusk, you see a face.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Like he's using like there's a face on his back.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, and he's forcing Justin to fish as a walrus. Basically, he's trying to reprogram his human brain to think more like an animal because this man's end goal is to hopefully allow Mr. Tusk the justice of killing him because of what he had to do to Mr. Tusk to survive. Now, the funny thing is about that part in the movie is he was with this walrus for quite some time before he eventually killed him and tried to eat him. And I say tried because the second he takes his first bite, here comes this rescue ship. And that's the joke. Is if you would have waited just a moment longer, and that kind of makes me think of this movie by Stephen King called The Mist.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

God, don't talk about that one.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

And uh we might do an episode on that one, but Stephen King has a lot of work I think we could get through as well, but that's future tense. Realistically, here guys, that's really the whole movie. Now, Haley Joel Osman's character is um Justin Long's character's best friend. They run this podcast together, but he's also sleeping with his girlfriend. And that's because Justin Long's character is a dick.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, just he's just another nice person.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Not even a little bit. He's one of those people, to give you an idea, is the second he got a little bit famous, his ego became too too big for his britches to hold. He also gets humbled by this experience as well, and towards the end, they actually end up putting him in an animal rescue, and he has his own little cage, he has his own little home. The girlfriend and the best friend come by and throw a fish in there every once in a while, it seems like, and but I think a lot of Wallace is gone at this point. Like he has memories, obviously. The real reason why you guys listen to this podcast is trauma can do so many things to your brain. And it would make sense to me that this traumatic experience that Wallace goes through by having his body completely transformed into a walrus, being force-fed fish, even though he knows he's not supposed to eat raw fish, learning how to swim, ends up killing the man violently. That's a lot of drama. Yeah. It is a lot of drama. So let's I kinda I kinda have two questions for you, because I would like to know about Wallace's brain before and after the operation. What do you think? What do you what what do you think was going on with Wallace beforehand? Was it just just ego or like was there?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Oh, he was a straight-up narcissist. He was a straight-up narcissist for sure. And I know that you guys hear me talk about that a lot, but for some reason, shockingly, a lot of these villains in these movies are narcissists. What would you know, you know, what do you know? What are the chances? Um, but no, he definitely it was ego, but it's because he's a narcissist. Like he felt like he was untouchable. He knew he was cheating on his girlfriend, and he's just like, well, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, you know, she's still gonna come back to me, and I'm I'm hot shit, and I'm the best thing there is, and I'm this famous podcaster, and just let everything get into his head, and he was like mean to like grocery store clerks and just wasn't a very nice person. I almost get a very like privileged vibe too. Like the man had never had any sort of he was basically grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth is the vault the vibe that I get from pre-Walris Wallace. Pre-Wally Wally.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

It's really hard to say.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Um, but yes, I think before this incident Big narcissist, huge ego. He's one of those guys that you see driving a huge truck with huge tires, and you're like, Oh, that guy's compensating for something. He's one of those guys.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I say it every time I see a truck backed up in a parking spot.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah. But yes. Okay, and then your second question.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Going into the procedure that this man puts him through, we now have a pretty good understanding that Wallace is not only a narcissist, but he is very open about it. He is very outward when it comes to whatever he's saying, whatever's on his mind, whatever you're doing or what you look like. What does serious trauma do to a brain like that?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I've talked about this in one other episode, but for those of you who are here for the first time, trauma can actually trauma actually changes the chemical compounds of your brain. So if you take if you take two people, okay, and you put them in a CT scan machine um to do brain scans, and you one person has significant trauma, the other person does not. And let's say this one, let's say this person who has significant trauma. The trauma is a car accident. And let's say that somebody dies in this car accident. Let's say a parent or a sibling or a friend, husband, whatever, dies in this car accident. And then this other person doesn't have any trauma. But like let's say, I don't know if you've ever been to like done an MRI or a a CT or um anything like that. But you know how like I just got an MRI done on my knee, and they're like, hey, what what radio station do you want to listen to? What kind of music do you want to listen to? They typically play some sort of music or something. So like let's say that during the scan they're purposely trying to trigger this person's trauma. So let's say that they know that during right before the crash, a specific song was on the radio. And so they play that song. They play the song that this person said was playing right before this crash. And while they're playing this song, you will literally see this person's brain light up differently than the other person's brain. Because the trauma literally affected their brain. It changed the chemistry of their brain. Your brain's job is to protect you, both physically and emotionally, all of it. So whenever you have a significant trauma, your brain, parts of your brain will shut off. Not shut off, but almost like a a door. It'll close a door, and that's why some people one of the biggest symptoms of PTSD is loss of memory or repression, because your brain is like, that was hurtful. I'm not gonna remember it. Your brain purposely tries to protect you by shutting that part of your brain down. And I'll post them again, they're on our Instagram, but I've posted pictures before of like a normal brain versus a brain with trauma, and it is the most fascinating thing to me. The brain is like I've always said this, I would love to just hold one in my hand. Like just a human brain. I just want to hold it in my hand. And I want to hold one without mental illness, and then I want to hold one with mental illness, and I want to see what they look like because I guarantee you they would look differently if they're if you're holding them in your hand.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And it's kind of silly because you're fascinated by that and have never done it. And I'm not that fascinated by it. And you've done it. And I have done it.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah. Like you've literally touched a human brain.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I've I will I've it was present during a real autopsy.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

I'm sorry, but I'm just a weirdo. But yes, so trauma literally changes your brain. Like people are like, oh I don't think people realize what trauma can can do to a person, but that's why people completely change, their personalities change, they how they talk to people changes. I mean, just their whole demeanor changes, they can have significant mental health issues afterward because it literally changes your brain chemistry. Significant enough trauma changes your brain chemistry. And what's crazy is PTSD back in the day used to just be called shell shock syndrome because it was only considered for military pee for people in the military. It was not even considered anything for like physical or sexual abuse, emotional abuse until within the last thir I'd say the last 30 years. Before that, you couldn't get PTSD or couldn't be diagnosed with it unless you were a veteran or a current service member.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

It's crazy just how like in the last three decades how much has how much has changed, and I'm I I hope that I'm around for the next three decades to see it hopefully get to a point where it is greatly considered a almost like an epidemic in the United States when it comes to mental health, and it needs to be more of a conversation that everybody has. And we need to find people who want to be in office that follow that same structure when it comes to mental health. Because I right now what's going on in today's world is that we've accomplished in the last three decades is just getting trashed.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

At the end of the day, it might be people like us having these conversations so that hopefully if you're listening, you're learning, and can have a better understanding of what we're trying to do here. We're not just trying to watch good movies and have conversations with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Obviously, because Tusca's not a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

We're trying to bring awareness to mental health and breaking down what these people are doing hopefully gives you visual signs of what you can use in the real world. But enough of my TED talk.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

So let's touch on Mr. Howard. I had mixed feelings about what was going on with Howard. Um, I was like, man, he's delusional. Like I think you even heard me say in the movie, I was like, oh, this dude's got delusional disorder. Yep. Like, straight up. But the thing is, is so delusional disorder is almost um it's similar to schizophrenia, but without the hallucinations. It's just straight delusions. So with schizophrenia, you have to have um, you can have either or, but you have to have at least one, whether it's hallucinations or delusions, and then you have to have one other symptom. But delusion, delusional disorder is just straight presence of one or more delusions for at least one month. So for the last month or longer. If so, if you have hallucinations that are related to the delusion, then it could still be delusional disorder. But typically that would just be schizophrenia. But I was like, oh, this dude's delusional. I don't think he is. Because really what he's experiencing is not a delusion. Like this was I think he also has trauma history. I mean, he was he almost died on a desert on basically, I mean, he was shipwrecked and almost died. And so if you actually do some digging too, he also talks about childhood trauma whenever he's talking to Justin Long's character and how much he hates humans, like just the hatred for humanity in general. And I think that stemmed from trauma. And that's why he almost imprinted on this walrus because it was the only thing that in his life was able he was able to rely on. Because at the end of the day, the walrus was there and it could have saved his life, and he thinks the walrus did save his life.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah, I think for him it was a it was the first time that he gave something to something, and that something gave him something in return. And because of that exchange of trust, I've I think that's why he had a very strong loving connection with this animal.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Well, I mean, his parents also died at a young age because they were murdered, and then he spent time in psychiatric facilities, and historically speaking, we know what that does to a person. Um, and then he had the trauma at sea with Mr. Tusk. He was forced to kill and eat the walrus to stay alive, which triggered an intense unresolved guilt, like we talked about. So he essentially kind of does develop a sort of delusionslash psychosis. But it's I I almost it's an obsession. Like at first I I did some more digging and I'm like, is this Guy kind of like an OCD or like a an obsessive compulsive personality disorder because he has this obsession with this walrus that you know he essentially had to kill. But it's more just the hatred for human beings because of the trauma that he went through. And like I said, trauma does some crazy things to the per to a person's brain and it can even cause a personality change. And I think he probably did have some sort of personality disorder, whether that was antisocial, because you know he had no remorse for what he was doing, or whether it was borderline, but he had some sort of personality change because of trauma. So I think in general it was because of trauma. I think he was just severely traumatized, and this was the only way this became an obsession to almost heal his own trauma. It was a trauma response for him.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, and I I definitely agree with the obsession, especially because once you kind of see this film and see what this man has done, like he even made a special room with water and this rock that is supposed to look like the area that they stayed at when they were shipwrecked, and Justin Long's character is not the first one.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Mm-mm. No, he's he is definitely not. I mean, what did they say? That it had been like thirty people.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah. So I think, yeah, over time, I think he was delusional. I think he had this obsession over this it was a delusion of like turning this person into a walrus, but I do think it stemmed from trauma. Doesn't negate the fact that he was a complete psychopath by any means. But I think had he not experienced the trauma that he experienced, I don't think he would be the person he is. I don't think it was uh organic uh psychosis, if you will, like schizophrenia or delusional disorder. Where that stuff just one day your brain just just a switch just f flips, you know, and I don't think that's what happened. But I think they both exp I think they both experienced trauma but at different stages of life, and that is what kind of created this whole crazy mindfuck of a movie.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

So my final thoughts. On a technical level, the performance from Michael Parks and Justin Long are phenomenal. Long sells absolute terror using nothing but his eyes, but structurally, the comedy elements undercut the horror, and the horror is way too nasty for comedy. It's an incredibly well-made movie that I never ever want to see again. It represents total creative freedom. Kevin Smith had the independence to make exactly what he wanted, logic be damned. It's a fascinating failure. A midnight cult classic, and a cautionary tale of what happens when you let podcasters make executive decisions. I will say, next time you see a flyer in the bathroom offering free room, don't do it. Maybe check a hotel app instead.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yes, probably some good advice. But on that note, typically I tell you, um, go watch the movie. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna torture you with that this time, because I probably could have gone the rest of my life without watching this stupid movie. But if you want to I think it was on um was it on Netflix?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah, we watched on Netflix.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Would you like to remind the good folks of our where they can listen and where they can post or where they can email?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yep, you can email us at splitscreenict at gmail.com and you can find us on Instagram where I typically try to post at least once a week. It's been kind of a crazy crazy few weeks for us if you listen to our last episode, so it hasn't been as much as I'd like, but you can find us on Instagram. It's also linked to my personal Facebook um if you want to find me there. And then do you want to talk about Patreon?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

I sure do.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

So, ladies and gentlemen, the Patreon is live.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Woohoo!

SPEAKER_01 26:30

So if you go to patreon.com slash split screen Ict, you will find our page. And you uh so with Patreon, you do not have to donate a whole you don't have to even donate five dollars. You can donate a dollar, and once you do that, it gives you a subscription to split screen ICT where you'll have full access to anything I upload on there. But I hope everybody has had a good week. I hope you have a great weekend. Can't wait to get to the next one. As she said earlier in the episode, the next episode we do is the last of our A24 series, and we're gonna do everything we can to make it a banger.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah. I also want to just up front let everybody know that if there might be a delay in getting the next episode out, um my handsome co-host over here is having a procedure done on June 1st. Um, that might put him out for maybe a week or two. Um, but we are gonna do our best to still keep everybody in the loop. And um, yeah, I we are if you have any ideas of like what your favorite A24 movie is, shoot him more direction because we're we want to make the last one count since it's the last one of our series.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, even the next episode could even the next episode after the ending of the series could even just be us going through a quick breakdown of everything we did for A24, maybe give you guys a little insight of how we're doing this and you know that kind of stuff. It'll uh kind of always intrigue me on what goes on behind the microphone, and maybe we might do something like that for you guys as well before we go into our next our next endeavor. But thanks everybody, have a great evening.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Have a good night, guys.