This week on the B movie docket is Thinner (1996)
Hello good people. And welcome to 50 B Movies: The Sequel. It’s bigger, better, and badder. The original 50 b Movies covered a wide range of B Movies. There was everything from Thankskilling 3 to The Void. Some films were funny. Some were unintentionally funny. And some were mainstream with far-out concepts like zombie tigers. All in all, it was a hell of a list.
Why make a sequel? Because narrowing down a list of 50 B Movies To See Before You Die was arduous. With so many movies to watch, one can never really know if the movie is good. Sure sometimes 5 minutes in, you know it is a real stinker. Other times it might take a half an hour before one realizes they will never get that half hour back to their life. Poof. Gone. But all in all there are many great B Movies that didn’t make the original list.
So welcome back if you are a LRM reader and welcome if it’s your first time here. Be forewarned we will be treading deep into the bush to pull these B Movies. We aren’t rehashing anyone’s previous 50 or 100 or 1000 B Movies list. Nope. So, prepare yourself for 50 B Movies To See Before You Die: The Sequel. Bigger. Better. Badder. Oooh yeah.
WEEK 36 – Thinner (1996)
A cursed lawyer sheds pounds faster than his sanity in Stephen King’s underrated ’90s B-movie, Thinner. If you’re hungry for dark humor, eerie curses, and a slice of nostalgia, this one’s worth sinking your teeth into.
The other day, I was on the phone with a buddy, and they go, Hey, did you check out that link I sent of the new Stephen King trailer? Man, King is an absolute American treasure. Back in the ’90s, was there anyone more prolific in the macabre? His books and their adaptations were like comfort food. And there was something about that pre-cell phone era—it just hit different.
PREAMBLE
This was the ’90s, the dawn of the internet, and TV still held a strong grip on our leisure time. One minute, you had Misery on screen, and the next, they’d hit you with a mini-series like The Stand. It was Lost before Lost even existed. To give you a sense of King’s domination, at least eight of his books got adaptations in that decade alone.
THE SHOW
Flash to 1998. It was my buddy’s birthday party—one of those classic sleepovers. You know it’s peak ’90s when you’re sitting around with friends, and on the TV? Thinner. But let me set the scene. Imagine this with a sprinkle of childhood imagination. Would you want to sit down and watch a movie about a witch, at your friend’s house, when there’s a lingering feeling a witch might crawl out from behind the TV?
RELATED: Space Mutiny | 50 B Movies – The Sequel – Bigger – Better – Badder
Yeah, that’s right. One of my pals, no names mentioned, had been telling us, his Goonie-esque circle of friends, that one day, while cleaning his basement, this woman suddenly crawled out from behind his TV. Sounds like total BS today, but at the time? We were hooked.
So, there we were, eyes glued to the screen. And I kept thinking, what am I even watching? Did that guy just hit the pedestrian? Will he rid himself of the gypsy curse?
OVERVIEW
Thinner is a solid ’90s B-movie gem. Stephen King adaptations were coming at us faster than you could say, hiya, Georgie. Directed by Tom Holland (no, not the web-slinger), this 1996 movie serves up horror and dark humor with a side of cheese.
PLOT
The film follows Billy Halleck, played by Robert John Burke. Billy’s a successful but overweight lawyer—and his weight isn’t just a throwaway detail, it’s a major plot point. After a hit-and-run accident that kills an elderly gypsy woman, Billy’s life takes a nasty turn. Enter the woman’s father, Tadzu Lempke, played by Michael Constantine, who curses Billy to lose weight uncontrollably.
Billy starts shedding pounds like he’s on a turbocharged SlimFast plan. But as he wastes away, his desperation to lift the curse drives the plot forward like a freight train.
CHEESE
Who doesn’t love a Stephen King adaptation? There’s always that certain something that keeps you watching, even when the acting teeters between A-grade and full-on F. Thinner packs that signature B-movie flair. The makeup effects are actually pretty impressive, making Billy’s weight loss both creepy and captivating. And Michael Constantine’s portrayal of the vengeful gypsy elder? Just the right mix of menace and theatrical flair.
Thinner became a sort of local legend among my friends after we watched it.
