A grease-covered serial killer, a father-son love triangle, and a shit-ton of exploding eyeballs. This, my rooty-tooty disco-cuties, is The Greasy Strangler.

Holy shit The Greasy Strangler is a weird one. I love things like this, but I’m not sure yet if I think it’s ‘good’ on any objective level or not. Hosking certainly has a strutting visual style. This is Wes Anderson filtered through Texas Chainsaw. Pastel walls and oddly-dressed characters, but filled with long shots that invite you to observe while being completely helpless; the sheer oddness unfolding before your repulsed eyes.

Ronnie (Michael St Michaels – an industry vet who you may recall popping up in classic shite-fest The Video Dead) is a fading disco impresario (or so he tells people), running a shitty Disco Tours operation with his oddball son Brayden. This involves pointing at doorways and claiming, “That doorway is where the BeeGees came up with the lyrics to Night Fever.”

Things quickly escalate as his equally weird customers demand free drinks, before storming off as Ronnie calls them a bunch of fucking cunts (oh yes, the C word. It seems to be popular in America these days. It never quite rings true in a Midwestern accent though. I digress). And later, Ronnie smothers himself head-to-toe in grease and strangles the lot of them. Popping out his victims eyes and frying them up in panko breadcrumbs.

Meanwhile, Brayden (Sky Elobar) has fallen for the only woman ever to come on the tour, and sets about seducing her. This involves eating slightly less-greasy-than-usual sausages in an erotic manner. Of course, Ronnie isn’t happy with this, so he straps on a disco suit that reveals his large (fake) penis, and puts his smooth moves all over her.

And against all odds, The Greasy Strangler is fucking hilarious. There’s a deep seam of Troma-ness running through ir, combined with Napoleon Dynamite characterisation, and an over-willingness to show off boobs, butts, farts and penises. Giant/tiny comical merkins abound,

Eyes pop, bones crunch, and godawful chipmunk music parps and farts throughout. It’s absolutely terrible, but add several beers or a decent herbal cigarette to the mix and you have an all-time cult classic waiting to happen. Look out for college kids shouting “Bullshit artist!” at each other for years to come. Multiple Maniacs era John Waters would be proud. So would Tobe Hooper.

The cast are great too, perfectly unselfconscious, which is handy as they spend most of their time wearing tiny underpants and uttering lines like “My scrotum then receded into my body”, or entirely naked, jumping up and down and chanting about Rooty-Tooty Disco-Cuties.

God alone knows what it’s meant to mean. I’ve tried filtering it through every critical faculty I could think of, and it still makes bugger-all sense. But who cares when it has its own greasy internal logic? If you like The Might Boosh, but wish it had more shit stains and dead pig-men (take a bow ‘Oinker) you’ll love it. If you’re normal, then maybe you won’t. 5/5 (or 1/5 depending on how amusing you find merkins)

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Author: Matt Owen Date: 2016-10-04 Title: The Greasy Strangler Rating: 5