THE GREASY STRANGLER: Grotesque, Eccentric, and Insane

The Greasy Strangler, the legend of midnight movies – films screened late at night in cinemas that bear no resemblance to huge multiplexes – is still alive today. Probably everyone who has even briefly broken away from mainstream cinema and wandered into those darker, suspect-character-populated alleyways of cinematography has come across titles that managed to acquire cult status thanks to late-night screenings.

El Topo and The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Eraserhead by David Lynch, The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Jim Sharman, or the perverse nightmares of John Waters-despite their differences, all of them once drew thousands of insomniac Americans into cinemas, people who during screenings would often chemically modify the boundaries of their perception, watch the same film dozens of times, or memorize dialogue in order to declaim it along with their heroes.

The film industry very quickly noticed the possibilities offered by this phenomenon; however, the men in suits sitting behind oak desks were never quite able to exploit it properly. Attempts to sell mainstream cinema in a circulation similar to that represented by midnight movies are still used today, for instance through organizing midnight premieres of major blockbusters such as Star Wars. Simply screening a film at midnight and encouraging people to come dressed as their favorite character does not, however, make a production a cult film.

One may therefore ask whether it is possible to direct a film in such a way that immediately after its premiere-straight away, in accordance with assumptions adopted before production even began-it would gain precisely such a status. The Greasy Strangler by Jim Hosking provides many interesting answers in this regard.

In this film everything—literally everything—is tailored so as to maximize its chances of being placed alongside productions such as Waters’s Pink Flamingos. An adult son, most likely suffering from a fairly serious intellectual disability, lives with his father, who provides him with a full refrigerator, a job, and a roof over his head. The men earn their living by guiding naive tourists around the city, tourists who believe that two guys dressed in pink outfits are taking them on a journey through places where disco culture was born.

That, however, is perfectly normal. Things only get strange in the privacy of the home, where every bite of food must be submerged in fat. And don’t get me wrong—this is not about McDonald’s fit burgers or thin pita kebabs, but about fried sausages swimming in liters of melted, yellowish sludge. As the title itself communicates, fat becomes in Hosking’s film something akin to a visual refrain, recurring throughout the screening as frequently as the words love and girl in disco music.

What is more, it spills beyond the edges of frying pans and the tormented digestive systems of the protagonists to create a monster tormenting the city’s inhabitants-the Greasy Strangler. Into this cholesterol-saturated world enters, to make matters worse, a woman who plays a double game between father and son. The younger man behaves in this confrontation like a teenager dreaming of great love, the older like a pervert.

The Greasy Strangler positively seethes with grotesqueness and eccentricity. The father proudly struts about with a monstrously oversized penis on display, drenches everything in fat, and continues to live off fabricated memories of his disco past. The son, who looks like a repeatedly registered sex offender, possesses the mentality of a youngster entering a rebellious phase, which does not prevent him from taking part in intimate games with his partner. The family’s best friends are Oinker-an adult man parading around town in women’s shoes, knee socks, underwear, and a pig’s snout—and a blind car wash owner.

Every inhabitant of this world has something wrong with their head, is completely detached from reality. If we add to this a whole range of mantra-like repeated catchphrases such as You are a bullshit artist, along with irritating yet almost automatically lodging-in-the-viewer’s-head music, we essentially have a complete recipe for a cult film.

The question remains, however, whether something so clearly tailored toward cult status and the aesthetics of midnight movies can truly achieve a position comparable to the titles mentioned at the beginning of this text. The answer is, of course, not unequivocal. When we look at the discussion The Greasy Strangler provoked among viewers and critics across the Atlantic, we can observe a discourse characteristic of this type of cinema. Some love it, others drag it through the mud and call the former lunatics. On the other hand, there is too much calculation and pandering to the audience in Hosking’s film.

Productions screened in late-night circulation were characterized by a genuine contestation of generally accepted norms—whether social or artistic; they were often wild, aggressive, and certainly not derivative. The Greasy Strangler is insane—this cannot be denied—but within all that madness it somewhat loses itself, because in trying to stuff its greasy roast with as much filling as possible, it forgets that more does not always mean better.

There are fragments in Hosking’s film from which one can derive a great deal of enjoyment (the discussion at the vending machine knocks you flat). The very confrontation with this disgusting yet hypnotic world also works in its favor—mainly thanks to Michael St. Michaels in the role of the father and the eccentric music that gives the whole thing some edge.

It is a pity that amid all this there is also a lot of unnecessary padding and endlessly repeated motifs that over time begin to tire the viewer somewhat. A midnight movie? Probably not. Still, The Greasy Strangler is a nice nod toward John Waters and his other strange colleagues. So watch out for the Greasy Strangler!