Movie review of “The Greasy Strangler”: The best thing about it: that title. The worst thing: everything that follows. Rating. half star out of 4.
The best thing about “The Greasy Strangler”: that title.
The worst thing about “The Greasy Strangler”: everything that follows that title.
Its running time is 93 minutes, which I’d say is 92 minutes too long.
Movie Review ½
‘The Greasy Strangler,’ with Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo. Directed by Jim Hosking, from a screenplay by Hosking and Toby Harvard. 93 minutes. Not rated; for mature audiences (contains nudity, sexual situations, language, violence, gore). Grand Illusion, through Thursday.
Looking like it was shot on a production budget of 17 cents (Really, guys? Crudely hand-drawn dollar bills as props. Really?), “Greasy,” which aspires to be a horror comedy, sends its main character around what appears to be a two-block radius of Los Angeles to throttle the occasional cast member.
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True to the title, the killer is covered head to foot in a glistening coating of white-ish goop, leaving a trail of gloppy footprints in his wake. A question occurs: How does he manage to maintain a death grip on a victim’s neck when his hands are so gosh-darn slippery?
The story here is that, whenever he washes off the slime, the strangler (Michael St. Michaels) is a bullying, grease-addicted father whose incessant nagging makes life a living hell for his dweeby grown son (Sky Elobar). When the son falls for a young woman (Elizabeth De Razzo), Daddy gets jealous and … ah, who cares?
Suffice it to say the acting can only yearn to be considered amateurish. The cast is naked for its many sex scenes (so-called), during which the audience may feel compelled to shout, “Put it back on! Put it back on!” And the dialogue consists of lines like — I swear — “hootie, tootie, disco cutie,” shouted repeatedly.
Most memorable scene: a pornographic moment featuring a grease-enslimed grapefruit.
All together now: Ick!