Thinner

Billy (Robert John Burke) is an obese lawyer who has just prevented mob boss Richie "The Hammer" Ginnelli (Joe Mantegna) from being sentenced to prison. After a dinner celebration, Billy and his wife Heidi (Lucinda Jenny) drive through town on the way home. A group of Gypsies led by 106-year-old Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine) are shopping in a store. Lempke's daughter crosses the street, and is accidentally killed by Billy, who was distracted by Heidi. In court, the judge and a policeman cover up for Billy and get him off without any charges. This enrages Tadzu and his beautiful great-granddaughter Gina Lempke (Kari Wuhrer). Tadzu puts a curse on Billy that will cause him to get thinner and thinner until he will eventually die. Lempke also curses the judge and policeman, causing them to kill themselves.

Billy has a nightmare in which Gina and Tadzu Lempke try to kill him with slingshots and by crushing him between a truck and a bus. Billy goes to the Gypsy camp and begs Lempke to remove the curse, but Lempke makes it worse in order to get justice for his dead daughter. When Billy threatens payback, an enraged Gina shoots a slingshot through his hand and orders him to leave the camp. Billy meets with Richie, and they plot their revenge against the Gypsies. Armed with a machine gun, Richie shoots up the Gypsy camp to terrify them into removing Billy's curse. Tadzu Lempke's trailer is riddled with bullets, but he escapes unharmed. Gina's husband is killed during the gun battle.

The next morning, Richie impersonates an FBI agent and lures Gina away from the camp and into an empty barn. He reveals he attacked the camp and threatens to shoot her. Gina defiantly fights him, but he throws her to the floor and puts an acid jar on her forehead, ordering her to tell Lempke to meet Billy at the lighthouse. After slowly getting the jar off her forehead, the enraged Gina threatens (while Richie and Billy are driving away) that Billy will die thin and Richie will die first. Tadzu Lempke meets with Billy and, in order to prevent further harm to his people, Lempke transfers the curse to a strawberry pie by cutting Billy's injured hand and mixing his blood into the pie.

Lempke tells him he will gain weight quickly, but someone must eat the pie soon. Whoever eats the pie will die. Tadzu Lempke urges Billy to eat the pie and die clean, but the revenge-obsessed Billy brings it home to Heidi, who eats a slice and dies. Billy's daughter also eats a slice and Billy, wracked with guilt, prepares to eat it. However, a doctor arrives and Billy offers him a slice to get revenge on him for his affair with Heidi. Billy grins evilly as he closes the door.

Continuity mistake: After Halleck hits the gypsy, she leaves no blood on the windshield, but in the next shot there is blood on it.

More mistakes in Thinner

Billy Halleck: Richie, you're not going to hurt anybody, are you?
Richie Ginelli: No. But Billy, if I'm gonna help you with this, you don't get to ask that question again.

More quotes from Thinner

Trivia: Stephen King appears in the film. He is the man behind the counter in the pharmacy serving the Gypsies.

Hamster

More trivia for Thinner

Question: How could Richie get the gypsy's dogs to eat the strychnine laced food? Shouldn't the dogs have been able to smell it?

Answer: I believe strychnine is odorless, so a dog would not be able to smell it. At the same time, it apparently has a bitter taste, which would question why a dog would ingest it - but some dogs tend to "swallow" or gulp food without chewing it, so may not notice the strychnine's bitter taste.

KeyZOid

Answer: That doesn't mean the dog wouldn't eat it. Some dogs will eat almost anything, often voraciously, and it is not unusual for dogs to be poisoned in this manner.

raywest

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