Kevin Smith Tusk

Kevin Smith Tusk

Cast: Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment
Director: Kevin Smith
Genre: Horror
Rated: MA15+
Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: In this modern-day monster movie, a journalist finds the story of a lifetime in Mr. Howe, a worldwide adventurer with amazing tales and a curious penchant for walruses.

Tusk
Release Date: October 9th, 2014

About The Production

The story of Tusk began on June 25, 2013, as Kevin Smith waited for Scott Moser to show up for their weekly 'SModcast." Minutes before the podcast began, Kevin Smith learned about a bizarre 'lodger wanted" ad that would come to dominate the next year of his life. 'Someone tweeted me a link to this listing that appeared on the UK site gumtree.com, which is like a British Craigslist," recalls Kevin Smith. 'It was far more lyrical than the typical ad. The guy said -I've lived a long and storied life including a period when I was lost at sea with a walrus I named Gregory as my only companion. I have been for some time constructing a very realistic walrus suit. In exchange for free lodging, two hours a day, your job would be to dress up in a walrus suit and make walrus noises. I will throw you fish and crabs.'"

The surreal listing captivated Kevin Smith as ideal podcast fodder. 'When Scott Moser got here I said, -Boy, we got a fun one today,' but there was no intent to do anything with it other than the podcast," recalls Kevin Smith.

It didn't quite turn out that way. Once Kevin Smith and Scott Moser started riffing about the ad, they imagined its potential as a horror-movie premise. 'There's a point in the podcast where I'm like -This movie needs to exist!' You can hear it in my voice: the desperation to see this movie, the sadness that nobody's going to make it, and then, the realisation -Oh, I'm a filmmaker, I could make this movie if I wanted to.'"

Kevin Smith experienced that same degree of urgency 20 years earlier when he wrote, directed and edited his breakthrough indie feature Clerks. 'For me," he says, 'it was very much like the moment that spawned my first movie. During the podcast, I had that same kind of intuition: I want to see this movie so badly, I should just make it."

Podcast To Page

Two days later, encouraged by a collective thumbs-up from his many Twitter followers, Smith sat down to write Tusk. 'On the podcast I said to the people listening, -Hashtag Walrus Yes' if you want to see this movie.' The next day I check and see thousands of #walrusyes Tweets compared to just one #walrusno. Everybody was like -Do it, do it, do it.' It was nice to know that people were saying I should give this a shot."

After he'd written 25 pages culminating in a shocking amputation scene, Smith showed the script-in-progress to his wife Jennifer. 'I waited for Jen to essentially crap on it because she can kill an idea faster than anything," explains Kevin Smith. 'Instead, Jen read it and said -The story's just so weird but I really want to know what's going to happen next.'

When Kevin Smith finished the screenplay, his team sent it to Demarest Films CEO Sam Englebardt. 'The story was just crazy and I couldn't stop thinking about it," Englebardt recalls. 'In some ways, Red State was practice for Tusk because in both films, Kevin Smith creates outrageous and terrifying characters but brings a human touch to it. I felt like Tusk was funny but in a very sophisticated way."

David Greathouse, president of production at Demarest Films, was equally intrigued. 'I read the script in 40 minutes and I just couldn't put it down," says David Greathouse. 'Kevin Smith was able to take an outrageous concept and create real, living characters. It was one of the most unusual scripts I'd ever read, and great unusual scripts don't come along very often and need to be supported."

Casting The Podcasters

With financing from Demarest in place, Kevin Smith asked Justin Long to portray egotistical podcaster Wallace. The comedic actor loved the story but had one reservation. 'The first incarnation of Wallace was more based on my friend Brian Johnson and his weird exploits with swingers," explains Kevin Smith. 'It was a sex-tourist podcast and Justin Long was like, -Dude, I don't know if the sex thing works for me because every woman in the audience is going to be happy to see me get sewed up in a walrus suit. I'm not saying make him a nice guy, but maybe there's another podcast Wallace could do. Maybe he makes fun of people on the Internet.'"

Justin Long was surprised by the script's intensity. 'I didn't expect it to be such macabre, balls- to-the-wall horror," he recalls. Even more surprising was Kevin Smith's ability to incorporate his suggestions. 'When we met, Kevin Smith smoked a lot of pot and I thought he wouldn't remember anything but within a week, he'd integrated all the things we'd talked about. That was my first insight about how Kevin Smith is very clear about what he wants yet he's also very collaborative and open to ideas. That's a rare combination."

Justin Long, who had appeared with Kevin Smith in the 2012 comedy For a Good Time, Call…, pictures his Wallace character as a digital-age bully. 'The success of the podcast is due to the humor Wallace finds in picking on people so I thought about shock jocks and drive-time morning deejays that do mean-spirited comedy. Wallace also reminds me of a lot of people I've encountered in L.A., who are so hungry for fame and success that they lose sight of what's really important."

Kevin Smith cast Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) to play Justin Long's podcasting sidekick Teddy. 'Haley Joel Osment gives a much layered performance and he's also got a great podcaster voice," says Kevin Smith. 'He's the only moral character in the whole movie."

For the role of Wallace's girlfriend Allison, Kevin Smith chose Genesis Rodriguez, a Cuban-American actress whose credits include Will Ferrell's 2012 Spanish-Language film Casa de mi Padre. 'I went to YouTube and entered Genesis Rodriguez' name," says Kevin Smith. 'I found her in this Man on a Ledge clip where she's a hot chick in a bikini but she also gives this micro expression that really caught my attention. Then I looked at a bunch of her other stuff and said, -I like her.'"

Genesis Rodriguez remembers digging into the Tusk script for the first time at 11:30 one night. 'That was a big mistake," she laughs. 'I couldn't go to sleep because the story was so intoxicating and just the strangest thing I had ever read. It's funny and dark and terrifying, yet it has depth. At around 4:30 in the morning, I wrote Kevin Smith saying, -This is so fucked up, I need to be a part of it.'"

'It's not a walrus movie," continues Gensis Rodriguez. 'It's about broken people. It's about choices. Wallace makes a bad choice and we follow him through that journey. For me, that's what Tusk is about. It's twisted and messed up in the best way possible."

A Literate Villain

The terror in Tusk comes courtesy of the elegantly warped Howard Howe. From the beginning, Kevin Smith wanted Michael Parks to portray the seafarer who'd escaped an abusive childhood only to become an unusually literate serial killer.
'It's a master class in performance," marvels Kevin Smith. 'Michael Parks starts as a weak old man in a wheelchair, becomes a spry sinister dude, changes character at one point. Watching him turn my dialogue into a song, it was tough to say -Cut' because I just wanted to watch Michael keep going."

Kevin Smith cast Michael Parks in his 2011 sociopolitical satire Red State after seeing him in From Dusk Till Dawn. 'I imagined keeping the intensity of Michael Park's performance in Red State but taking out the politics, sex and religion to make it about a bat-shit crazy old man in the woods who wants to turn a person into a walrus."

Michael Parks, 74, appreciated Howard Howe's unusual backstory. 'Spooky movies spook me so I don't go see them. But Tusk is not your normal horror film," he says. 'It's offbeat. It deals with absurdity and yet, strangely enough, you believe it."

The veteran performer struck up an easy rapport with Kevin Smith on set. 'There's an honesty and directness about Kevin Smith, no pseudo-intellectual crap, and he's very hip, bright and sensitive to people. I wish I'd met him 40 years ago."

Upscale Horror On A Budget

Kevin Smith has been entranced with Canada since he was five. 'To me it's this land of mystery and wonder," he says. He set Tusk north of the border, figuring he would shoot in Canada, both for its atmosphere and film-production tax breaks. Producer Greathouse persuaded Kevin Smith to film in North Carolina instead. 'They shoot the TV series -Banshee' and -Homeland' in North Carolina so these cats have it down to a science where they deliver both quality and speed," explains Kevin Smithh. 'Neither of those shows were in production so we cherry-picked crew members and got the cream of the crop."

'We were very conscious of not making a film that looked low budget and slapped together," adds Sam Engelbardt. 'It couldn't look like some kind of weird B movie so we increased the production budget quite a bit to make sure we created a very rich visual world."

Production designer John D. Kretschmer ('Homeland") proved to be a key collaborator, according to Greathouse. 'We didn't have to build a bunch of sets because we found this abandoned country club and basically turned it into our soundstage," he says. 'The way it was designed by John D. Kretschmer, you'd never know we didn't move around all over the place." Kevin Smith offers particularly high praise for cinematographer James Laxton. 'He was my secret weapon," says Kevin Smith. 'In my head, I always saw Tusk as being handheld. I thought, -This will be the -Clerks' of walrus movies.' Instead James said, -Let's shoot it wide-screen and instead of Steadi-cam, let's keep the camera on rails. So he elevated it to this lyrical gothic horror film."

The final piece of the production puzzle fell into place when David Greathouse recruited longtime friend and effects artist Robert Kurtzman, who worked previously with Greg Nicotero ('Walking Dead") at the legendary KNB Efx Group. 'We didn't want to go CGI, and Bob's an amazing rubber man," says Kevin Smith, who envisioned The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's iconic villain as a primary reference point. 'My suggestion to Bob was: Leather Face Walrus.' And Bob goes -Frankenstein too.' So Bob sent back a design and the only thing we had to add was whiskers. The tusks come from Wallace's tibia bone, shaved down, but you can't have a walrus without whiskers. At the zero hour, Bob sent a picture with the whiskers on it and I said -Oh my God, this is a human walrus.'"

The Mysterious Guy La Pointe

Tusk shifts gears when French-Canadian detective Guy LaPointe enters the fray to help Teddy and Allison locate their lost friend. The actor who portrays Guy La Pointe is just as mysterious as the character itself. 'Every time I show people the movie, they go -Who is that guy?' And I tell them, he's someone you want to get in your picture."

Kevin Smith shot the Guy LaPointe scenes in Los Angeles a few weeks after returning from the 15-day shoot in North Carolina. 'He's insanely interesting to look at and listen to. When I showed Tusk here at the house without those Guy LaPointe scenes, it was a much darker third act. People would say -Wow, that's disturbing.' Then they'd see the version with Guy LaPointe, and say, -It's funny!' The whole movie spirals down this rabbit hole of madness and just as you're losing hope, this whole other movie begins in the third act with Guy LaPointe. It takes a gifted performer to put the brakes on a movie and take it in a completely different direction. We got lucky with Guy LaPointe."

The Tarantino Factor

Given its shrewd blend of humor and gore, Tusk shares much in common with Quentin Tarantino's sensibility, and Kevin Smith is happy to celebrate the connection. The filmmaker tips his hat to Tarantino explicitly in the first few minutes of Tusk when Wallace decides to track down the boy who accidentally cut off his leg while re-enacting a swordplay scene from Kill Bill. 'That's how the -Kill Bill kid' was born," says Kevin Smith, who first saw Parks in action in the Quentin Tarantino-produced Robert Rodriquez vampire movie From Dusk Till Dawn. 'It's a nod to Quentin Tarantino, because without Quentin Tarantino, I wouldn't have discovered the work of Michael Parks." Quentin Tarantinoo's brash personality also helped inspired Justin Long's approach to the Wallace character. 'Quentin Tarantino's mind works a mile a minute, and he's got a mouth to match. Wallace has that same kind of larger-than-life energy that Quentin Tarantino possesses."

Uniquely Internet For Kevin Smith, the entire Tusk project can be seen as an exercise in Internet-empowered creativity. 'Tusk is the story of a guy who tries to turn another guy into a walrus," says Kevin Smith. 'But really it's the story of how far you can push whimsy from the kernel of an idea that we put up on the podcast and six months later I'm standing on a set calling -Action' with Justin Long in a walrus costume. And six months after that we had a finished film. I've made the best movie of my career because a bunch of strangers said -Walrus Yes.' So there's something to be said for the Internet."

Epilogue: A Hoax Unveiled

As news spread about the making of Tusk, Kevin Smith heard from the man who originally posted the ad that had captured his imagination. 'The guy without whom none of this happens is Chris Parkinson from Brighton, England," says Kevin Smith. 'He found me on the Internet and told me there was no lodger. The ad wasn't real. I told him -Dude, you're my spirit animal. Come be a producer on the movie!' So we flew Chris Parkinson over and he's in the scene where Teddy and Ally are in a bar talking to somebody who looks like Wolverine. Having Chris Parkinson on set was a constant reminder of what a weird, wonderful world the web is. This movie couldn't have happened without it."

Tusk
Release Date: October 9th, 2014