Rish Outfield's reviews
Wow, my least-favourite Stephen King story brought to life! I've found, though, that this can work in a film's advantage. The more beloved the source material, the more expectations the fans have, and the more chance the film will disappoint. In this case, I actually enjoyed the film, much to my surprise. Horror film veterans Tom Holland ( Fright Night, Child's Play) and producers Richard Rupenstein and Michael Galin (who also made Creepshow and the TV anthology series "Tales From the Darkside") know their stuff, pulled off a much better adaptation than I would've thought possible. But don't get me wrong, it was a sad, unpleasant film, just not as unpleasant as the book was.
Big fat and friendly Billy Halleck runs down an old gypsy woman with his car, and makes an enemy of her father when he gets off scot-free. He is cursed by the gypsy priest and the weight begins to come off. . .a lot.
The most striking thing about Thinner was the extraordinary makeup job by Greg Cannon. My first impression was "pretty great fat makeup." Now, of course I knew it was fat makeup (it would be pretty hard to keep that a secret), but the fact that rolly-polly Billy Halleck was played by an unknown actor, Robert John Burke, made it all the more believable that he was really a fat guy. He was very good as the lead, not just in being a "nobody," but in his acting as well. Joe Mantegna appeared as a Mafioso buddy-type character, who turned out to be more likable than anybody else. Uber-hot B-movie sexpot Kari Wuhrer appears (and keeps her shirt on, if you can believe it), as a character I found particularly loathsome. But I have issues. I smiled when I saw Steve King's cameo as Mr. Bangor, the town pharmacist, but that rather silly practice seems to better belong in the 80's, doesn't it?
The story moved at a nice pace, but it was very, very cruel and very bleak, like the book. The ending was substantially different from the one I remember in the novel, tacking on a rather overt moral: "Badness leads to more badness."
I'd Recommend It To: King fans, mostly, but they've probably already seen it.