‘The Greasy Strangler’: American comedy’s most absurd entry
Throughout American cinema history, a series of films have delivered a truly unique and absurd style of comedy. Although Pink Flamingos and Happiness are notable efforts, few films have captured the brilliance of black comedy quite like Jim Hosking’s 2016 movie The Greasy Strangler.
Narratively, the film, starring Michael St. Michael and Sky Elobar, focuses on Big Ronnie and Big Brayden, a father-son duo who run a disco-themed walking tour. Big Ronnie allows his son to live with him so long as he continues to cook overly greasy for him, which plays into the fact that Big Ronnie moonlights as a greasy serial killer who commits a series of grotesque murders.
Grotesque is certainly the perfect word to describe The Greasy Strangler, alongside absurd. There is repeated dialogue and some seriously strange jokes set with long periods of silence. As Big Ronnie continues his greasy rampage, speaking in robotic and abusive tones with his son, Hosking’s film grows in its surrealism.
Aesthetically, The Greasy Strangler is actually pretty impressive, though, considering its visual style. There’s an admittedly garish quality to proceedings that serves as a homage to the low-budget films of the 1970s, although this is an intentional choice that adds to the absurd feel of the movie.
John Waters and David Lynch certainly seem to have influenced Hosking’s film, particularly the former. After all, there are moments in The Greasy Strangler that can be downright difficult to watch, much in the way that Waters had delivered in Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. This surreal absurdism has the audience dive headfirst into the film’s strangeness, though, and once invested in its greasy nature, hilarity ensues.
There’s an emotional avenue of sorts in The Greasy Strangler, too, one that explores the relationship of a father and his son. Big Ronnie and Big Brayden constantly bicker with one another, although they sway between hostility and a strange form of affection that is ultimately put to the test when Big Brayden’s love interest, Janet, arrives on the scene, especially when she also becomes involved with the sickening Big Ronnie.
In an interview with The Independent, Hosking once spoke of how he was first inspired to make The Greasy Strangler. He noted, “I remember having a vision of a naked man covered in some kind of porridge-like substance standing in a doorway with a leering smile and slender under-muscled arms extended in a prime strangling position.”
That was the original source of inspiration and pretty much a solid description of what the film would become, but Hosking also explained that he had to write something “absurdly self-indulgent” after finishing a series of “serious rigorously crafted” scripts. Needing a break, he set about exploring the “randomness” and “experimental nature” of The Greasy Strangler.
Hosking’s film is undoubtedly strange and difficult to watch, but it’s undeniable that it is also bloody hilarious. Even off-shoot moments featuring side characters are side-splittingly funny, and the main narrative is equally one that delivers a consistent weird tone throughout its runtime.
American comedy has had so many moments of the bizarre, the eerie, the weirdo and the absurd, but few have captured the quality of black comedy quite like Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler. A necessary entry into the genre, Hosking’s film is essential viewing, especially for the most greasy and grotesquely inclined.
