The Greasy Strangler

“The Greasy Stran­gler” is a 2016 Amer­ican inde­pendent film in the genre of black comedy and horror. The story revolves around the quirky and grot­esque everyday life of Big Ronnie and his adult son Brayden, who together offer an absurd tourist tour of their hometown. But behind the façade of this seem­ingly harm­less activity lies a dark secret.

The plot unfolds in a seedy envir­on­ment pop­u­lated by strange char­ac­ters. Big Ronnie, an over­weight middle-aged man who prefers to cover him­self in greasy oil, has a bizarre obses­sion with strangling people. As the mys­ter­ious “Greasy Stran­gler”, he causes terror at night as he drowns his vic­tims in oil and then strangles them. Mean­while, Brayden becomes increas­ingly irrit­ated by his father’s sexual attrac­tion to women, espe­cially his new flame Janet.

The story unfolds in a series of absurd and dis­turbing scenes that cap­tivate and dis­turb the viewer in equal measure with their shock value and bizarre per­form­ances. For example, the film’s mad ideas and most absurd scenes include the excessive use of greasy oil in almost every scene to achieve the most garish and dis­gusting effects. In addi­tion, the dia­logue between the char­ac­ters is often char­ac­ter­ised by crude humour and vulgar lan­guage.

One of the most mem­or­able scenes is an elab­or­ately staged dance duel between Big Ronnie and a com­pet­itor named Brayden. In gar­ishly col­oured suits and accom­panied by absurd music, the two deliver a grot­esque per­form­ance that oscil­lates between ridicu­lous­ness and ecstasy. Another sur­real scene shows Big Ronnie holding a hot dog stand race, car­rying an actual hot dog stand on his shoulders and run­ning wildly through the streets.