Tusk (2014)

Justin Long and Johnny Depp join the "Clerks" director for a weird, unpredictable movie that still feels like only Smith could have made it.

Nice as it would be to herald Tusk as a return to Smith's bold early period, the movie has a lurching tone and an airless atmosphere.

If Kevin Smith was stoned when he thought up his excellent walrusian nightmare, then marijuana is the best creative medicine.

"Excess" is Smith's middle name, so the show goes on . . . and on.

Tusk is not a particularly good movie, but the vivid anxiety dream at its heart makes it one of the most personal films this writer-director has ever made.

Tusk is an overextended, tonally incoherent joke that would make viewers squirm even if it didn't involve a bloody and demented medical experiment.

Kevin Smith has lost his mind.

'Tusk' opens with the sound of two men laughing at their own jokes, so I guess a doff of the cap is due to the filmmaker for encapsulating his movie so efficiently, right from the jump.

Tusk's inherent absurdity would much better have been played straight and subtle all the way through to the end, rather than covered over with the broadest layers of blubbery, fish-in-a-barrel slapstick. Still, really enjoyed the first half...

A film so openly inessential that it circles back around to vitality, frequently finding that elusive sweet spot between horror and comedy.

The quintessential midnight experience, Kevin Smith's next outing as he transitions from slacker comedy to dark horror is, like most of his films, for the fans.

You have to be on board for all of Kevin Smith's lunacy or you won't be able to connect with some of the choices he makes, but I found Tusk wildly inventive and am hopeful it earmarks a bold new chapter for Smith's filmmaking career.