Greasy Overload (The Greasy Strangler)
2016 had its fair share of surrealism, but none more – I don’t know, let’s say “obscure” – than Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler. In it, a disco enthusiast named Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) doubles as a local serial killer. His M.O.? Covering himself in a thick coating of grease, and then strangling people.
Oh, but that’s not the gross part. Practical effects are rather fun (eyeballs popping like balloons), but the grossness comes into play because of the grease itself. Michaels consumes thick, slimy grease like water, or slurps it off food. Greasy grapefruit, sausages glistening in greasy film, legit grease piles that look like thin oatmeal scooped off the floor. Michaels keeps proclaiming nothing is greasy enough, but I beg to differ – any more grease and my stomach would have been reacting a bit more violently.
Tiger’s Death (Green Room)
Jeremy Saulnier made my most f#*ked up movie moments list last year with his opening Blue Ruin kill, and with Green Room‘s 2016 release, he’s back once again. Many look to Anton Yelchin’s sliced-up hand as the film’s most grotesque offering, but for me, Tiger’s death at the hands (paws) of a vicious pit bull hits like a Muhammad Ali right-hook. Torn flesh aside (blood spurts from a removed esophagus), the kill itself evokes a primitive brutality because the dog is just following orders – evil, white-supremacist orders.
Because everything happens so quick, Tiger’s breakneck death eradicates any hope we think the film might be building for the Ain’t Rights. Unfortunately, they’re toast – there’s no way around it.