When a gypsy caravan arrives in Fairview, the conservative judge Phillips (Howard Erskine) forces the gypsies to leave town. Meanwhile the gluttony lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke),who has difficulties to reduce his weight, successfully defends the mobster Ritchie Ginelli (Joe Mantegna) in court; during the night, he celebrates with his partner and wives in a dinner party. While driving back home, his wife Heidi (Lucinda Jenney) makes oral sex with Billy and he runs over the old gypsy Suzanne Lempke (Irma St. Paule),the daughter of the patriarch Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine). During the trial, Billy omits the reason of the accident; the chief of police Duncan Hopley (Daniel von Bargen) perjuries; and the bigoted judge declares Billy not- guilty for the accident. On the next day, Billy, Duncan and Phillips are cursed by Tadzu that puts a hex on each one of them. Billy gets thinner and thinner and while seeking out Tadzu to ask him to remove the spell, he suspects that his wife is having an affair with his doctor and friend Mike Houston (Sam Freed). Billy feels that his life is running out and asks for help to Ritchie to convince Tadzu using his method to call off the jinx.

The creepy "Thinner" is an underrated and one of my favorite horror movies based on a Stephen King's novel. The special effects and make-up were state-of-art in 1996 and even thirteen years later, they are very good. With the exception of Billy'/s daughter, all characters are corrupt in some level and deserve their fate. A couple of months ago, I saw another good movie based on the same theme - a gypsy curse – Sam Raimi's "Drag me to Hell". My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição" ("The Curse")

This engaging adaptation of the novel, which Stephen King wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, stars the under rated Robert John Burke as Billy Halleck. Billy is a lawyer in Maine who happens to be grossly overweight. After he accidentally runs down an elderly Gypsy woman, his judge (John Horton) and cop (Daniel von Bargen) friends conspire to help Billy avoid any punishment. This infuriates the old womans' even more ancient father (Michael Constantine, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"),who places one of those old fashioned Gypsy curses on Billy. Stroking Billy's cheek, he utters one word: "Thinner". Soon, Billy is rapidly losing weight, which he enjoys at first, until he realizes that he really is going to waste away to nothing unless something is done.

Just personally speaking, this viewer has a blast with this particular King story. Yes, it's unrelentingly downbeat, but he didn't mind that so much. And it's true: other than Billy's daughter Linda (Bethany Joy Lenz),there isn't a single character in the story who's remotely sympathetic. Still, this viewer found it refreshing that so many people here turn out to be such a-holes. It's a highly entertaining tale, well told by co-screenwriter and director Tom Holland ("Fright Night", "Child's Play"). And it's fortunately not completely without a sense of humor, although the humor tends towards the dark.

There's wonderful music by Daniel Licht, but the real marvel of the movie is the astonishing, convincing makeup effects (supervised by Oscar winner Greg Cannom) that transform the thin Burke into an obese man. There's also a gem of a supporting performance by the always entertaining Joe Mantegna as a mafia man whom Billy had successfully defended in court. Therefore, the mobster feels indebted to the lawyer, and is more than willing to help Billy in his quest to convince the ancient Gypsy to remove the curse. The supporting cast is solid right down the line, with Lucinda Jenney as Billy's possibly unfaithful wife (the script tries to leave this aspect as ambiguous as possible),Sam Freed as a doctor friend, the intoxicatingly sexy Kari Wuhrer as Constantines' great granddaughter, Elizabeth Franz in a bravura turn as Hortons' wife, and Peter Maloney as an information provider. Director Hollands' son Josh plays Frank Spurton; King has his usual cameo (playing a pharmacist). What is a real laugh is the fact that actress Irma St. Paule, as the accident victim, actually looks OLDER than Constantine!

Good gloomy fun, but it won't be to all "tastes", especially the ending.

Eight out of 10.

I do like Stephen King's work, but this film adaptation didn't work for me. I did like Robert John Burke(though I do think Billy Halleck, despite Burke's charisma should have been much more tortured in characterisation here),the makeup/effects which are surprisingly good and Joe Mantegna who steals every scene he's in, but that's it. The production values are alright, but there are some transitions between scenes that looked rather choppy and some of the lighting is so dim it is hard to make out what's happening in some scenes. The dialogue is fairly stupid and clunky, and the story is rather slow moving with an ending that felt reminiscent of a badly done parody of Tales from the Crypt or something or other. I think because of the slow pace and the laughable dialogue, not to mention the weak characterisation of most of the characters especially the negatively stereotyped Gypsies, there is a lack of genuine atmosphere in Thinner. Overall, just didn't work. 3/10 Bethany Cox