Stephen King’s ‘Thinner’ Turns 30: The Curse Lives On!
Stephen King’s ‘Thinner’ turns 30! Anastasia Elfman revisits the wicked curses of this cult horror classic.
Toss off that trench coat, sit back and pass the popcorn, because we’re celebrating 30 years of Stephen King‘s Thinner!
Directed by horror icon Tom Holland (Child’s Play, Fright Night), this cautionary tale may be a divisive Stephen King story, but its offbeat charm lies in the larger-than-life world Holland created. The characters feel plucked straight from the pages of a deeply twisted comic book, where personalities are heightened, morality is at an all-time low, and reality takes a delightfully bizarre turn. An unusual blend of visceral horror, dark comedy, and zany storytelling that gives the film its own personality.
Released in 1996, Thinner follows Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke), an overweight, well-connected attorney who seems to have it all: money, influence, a comfortable suburban existence, and an appetite for excess. But when a moment of distraction behind the wheel results in the death of an elderly Romani woman, Billy’s privileged world begins to unravel. Thanks to his connections in local law enforcement, he escapes legal punishment, but the victim’s grieving father, Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine), has another kind of justice in mind. With a single touch and one chilling word, Lempke places a supernatural curse on Billy.
Apparently, Billy wasn’t the only one to cross Lempke’s path and suffer supernatural consequences. Now Billy and his corrupt pals are in a desperate race against the clock to find Lempke and convince him to reverse their fates.
With his body wasting away, his friends dropping like flies and his options disappearing, Billy finds himself caught between vengeance, desperation, and a particularly gruesome moral dilemma. Yet beneath all the supernatural wickedness, Thinner is also an unlikely buddy movie. Billy’s friendship with Richie Ginelli, played to sleazy perfection by Joe Mantegna (The Twilight Zone, The Godfather Part 3), becomes one of my favorite parts of the film, with Ginelli willing to go to outrageous lengths to save his pal.
