Blu-ray Review – Thinner

The business of Stephen King adaptations was booming in the 1990s, with the occasional box office success ("Misery") and critical darling ("The Shawshank Redemption") refreshing interest in the prolific author's work. 1996's "Thinner" is another one of the bunch, taking inspiration from a 1984 book written under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman, with the writer exploring the panic of an obese man dealing with a curse that forces him to shed weight at a nightmarish speed. The premise has potential for something cinematically interesting, providing a thorough creative challenge to manufacture such a distinct vision for body horror. "Thinner" is instead handed to co-writer/director Tom Holland ("Child's Play," "The Temp"), who goes the sledgehammer route with the movie, turning pages of detail and disturbing behavior into a cartoon exploration of desperation. Suspense is missing from the picture, along with a sense of the bizarre, as Holland goes for painful exaggeration with the endeavor. He's also stuck with subpar makeup work for the central journey of an overweight man as he turns into a skeleton, with Hollywood magic missing the mark as star Robert John Burke has to physically work with an ill-fitting transformation in a supremely underwhelming effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com