A24 Film No. 12: Tusk (2014)

I guess I cannot start writing about Tusk without saying “what the fuck did I just watch,” because that is the reaction I had throughout the movie and still have days after watching it. But I guess that “what the fuck” is not really in a bad way. The thing with Tusk is that, through a comedic body horror, it wants to make you feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed… and it definitely succeeds in doing that. I have some vague memories of when this movie was released and reading comments about how bad and weird it was, and I get why people can react negatively towards it. But to be fair, the movie wants to be weird, wants to be uncomfortable, so it is not entirely fair to say that it is a bad film (the only bad thing is Johnny Depp and his acting, who was going through the first stage of his decay in Hollywood). Since the purpose of Project A24 is to think of A24 movies as part of a whole, trying to identify recurring themes and approaches to answer different questions, I’ll do my best to do some sort of analysis of Kevin Smith’s Tusk (and I cannot avoid spoilers on this one). And there are actually a few interesting points the movie makes. We just need to go beyond the surface and the awkwardness.

The film is based on a podcast episode by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, in which they discussed a peculiar ad on Gumtree (an online classifieds site) offering a free rental in exchange for the lodger dressing as a walrus. During the episode, they laughed and imagined different scenarios in which this could go, asking the audience to tweet #WalrusYes or #WalrusNot if they wanted or not to see their vision of the story on film. And “Yes” was, of course, the main response.  The story follows Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), a podcaster and co-host of the show Not-See Party alongside his best friend Teddy Craft (Haley Joel Osment). Wallace travels to Canada to interview the subject of a viral meme, only to discover that the teenager has killed himself before he arrives. Without a story and desperate for content, Wallace stumbles upon an ad promising “free room and interesting stories.” Curious, he visits the address and meets Howard Howe (Michael Parks), an eccentric old man living in what feels like a cabinet of curiosities. Howard captivates Wallace with elaborate tales, but what Wallace does not realize is that Howard has a much darker intention: he wants to transform him into a literal walrus.

Howard amputates Wallace’s legs, removes his tongue, reshapes his bones into tusks, and encases him in a grotesque skin suit in order to “recreate” Mr. Tusk—a walrus he once befriended and later killed and ate to survive. Parallel to this storyline, Teddy and Wallace’s girlfriend, Ally (Genesis Rodriguez), begin investigating his disappearance.

The starting point: evilness in humans

Beneath its absurd premise, the film poses deeper questions about humanity and the idea that men are savage animals. Howard’s line, “Yes… man is a savage animal, Mr. Bryton. Better to be a walrus,” captures the spirit of the film.

We are told Howard did not become a crazy walrus-obsessed human-torturer for no reason. He lived a very traumatic childhood, suffering physical and mental abuse by those who should have taken care of him (“I was tortured, I was beaten, I was raped. I have had things in my mouth that no human being should ever taste. They never thought of me as a person. They just thought to use me”), developing a severe case of misanthropy. He repeatedly emphasizes the cruelty of humanity, which becomes a way of justifying his own monstrous actions. If humans are inherently evil, then, in his logic, his violence is merely a reflection of that truth.

However, Howard is not the only morally questionable character. Wallace himself is a terrible person: narcissistic, exploitative, and a chronic cheater. He builds his podcast on mocking others and seems incapable of genuine empathy. At times, it is difficult to fully sympathize with him, and his fate almost feels like a twisted form of karma. Even Teddy and Ally are not free from moral flaws. Despite being hurt by Wallace’s infidelity, they are secretly involved with each other. Their betrayal is minor compared to Howard’s crimes, but it reinforces the idea that no character is entirely innocent.

The film clearly declares that no man (or woman) is free from these moral and behavioral errors, but goes beyond to explore the extent to which this “evilness” is the door that opens the way to stop being entirely human and to be closer to beasts. 

What makes us human or animal?

Despite hating humans, Howard identifies human characteristics in Mr. Tusk. As he mentions, “He was the only living thing that ever had my best interests at heart,” finding in the walrus the love he never received from humans. In doing so, he blurs the line between human and animal, in which the walrus (as representative of animals) sometimes seems better than humans, who might have characteristics we could associate with bestiality. Evilness as something that goes against humanity, to such a level that it seems to represent just the entry stage to the journey to becoming “an animal”, a beast.. But even making it seem that the animal is better than the human. 

I identify three levels of dehumanization (therefore, we could think of an animalization) over the story. First, there is a physical dehumanization of Wallace with grotesque alterations to his body, taking out his legs (ironic, since in the first scene of the movie we see Wallace laughing at the viral meme of the guy who “cuts” his leg with a katana, and even mentions he would cut his own leg for that level of fame), tong, the stitching of the skin of his upper arms to his torso, and the use of his tibia bones to make tusk-like shapes that are put into his mouth. At the end of the movie, the only physical reminder of the old human Wallace is a Big Gulp cup that is always by his side, evoking his identity and who he once was (as his love for large-sized sodas).   

Second, there is linguistic dehumanization. With this deformation, Wallace can no longer speak or use his voice. He is not only subsumed by the physical transformation, but also by taking away his ways of communicating and expressing himself: “Whilst in the walrus suit, you must be a walrus. There'll be no sounds of a human voice. You must communicate everything you do as a walrus.” Language is arguably one of the core markers of humanity, and it is stripped away from him. Wallace can only produce animalistic sounds, cutting him off from meaningful communication.

Finally, there are also references to a deeper dehumanization that relates to emotional characteristics. One of the most important ones is the reference to crying as something human: “It's good to cry. It separates us from the animals. Shows you have a soul,” his girlfriend tells him in a flashback scene. Crying becomes a symbol of humanity and soulfulness. We are told that a previous version of Wallace, before the podcast's success, was a softie who cried while watching Winnie the Pooh. It creates an interesting comparison to his current douchebag form that, when it transforms into the walrus, cannot cry anymore, only produce disturbing noises. Even Howard yells at Wallace that walruses don’t cry, pointing out that he can no longer show his emotions in that way, which in a way also hides what he is feeling (as if not crying would negate the existence of pain). 

In the final confrontation, Wallace (fully transformed) kills Howard with his tusks. The camera frames him as an animal rather than a man. One year later, he remains confined to an enclosure, condemned to live as the creature he has become.

Is man, indeed, a walrus at heart?

Howard presents his experiment as an attempt to answer a philosophical question: “Is man, indeed, a walrus at heart?” Beyond the absurdity and body horror, Tusk can be read as a reflection on whether humanity’s inner nature is fundamentally savage. Is civilization just a thin surface layer? Are we closer to beasts than we like to admit? The film does not offer a clear answer. Instead, it destabilizes the distinction between human and animal. Humans behave monstrously; the walrus represents loyalty and affection. Evilness appears as something that pushes humans toward “animality,” yet the animal itself sometimes seems morally superior.

Through its grotesque humor and uncomfortable imagery, Tusk ultimately becomes more than a bizarre experiment. It is a dark, exaggerated meditation on dehumanization and on the fragile boundary that supposedly separates humanity from the beasts.