Thinner (1996)

When this movie came out, I don't know how much anyone was thinking about gypsies.  Like in the real world.  I certainly wasn't.  But now I do think of gypsies, because of one of my guilty pleasure shows, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.  The gypsies in that show trend closer to Jersey Shore than they do in Thinner but 15 some-odd years have passed, so maybe things have changed.

Thinner is one of Stephen King's less popular books, but they'd make a movie out of the man's grocery list. [Side note: Yet they won't make a fucking Talisman miniseries, which is pretty much all I've ever wanted to see in my entire life]  The cover art for this movie is stupid, and I'm not going to use it as my picture here.  However, I will say that this movie stars Robert John Burke as Billy Halleck and Lucinda Jenney (galpal of Bill Moseley) as Heidi Halleck.  Stephen King makes his token cameo appearance as the town pharmacist.  I would have preferred a gypsy, but I imagine he makes that choice.

Thinner is about an obese lawyer, Billy Halleck whose family wants him to lose weight.  He can give a shit, and plods along at the same weight, while pretending to drink shakes in the morning and pigging out later.  After winning a particularly important case, Billy and his wife Heidi, along with the judge and his wife, go to the country club to celebrate.  Billy celebrates by stuffing his face.  Heidi celebrates by giving him road head on the way home.  Anyone with any sense knows this is super dangerous because dudes tend to lose focus when this type of thing is taking place.  So, fairly predictably, Billy's eyes are closed as an old gypsy woman crosses the street, and he smacks right into her.

Of course, his buddies the judge and the chief of police can't have their homie locked up, and they work quickly to get rid of the troublesome gypsies, and get Billy off the case for manslaughter.  But as he leaves the courtroom, he runs into a super-old gypsy (106!) who touches him and says, "thinnnnerrrr." 

After some research, he follows the gypsies around, hoping to remove the curse.  Of course, it's not as easy as he thinks, and complications arise.  The ending is a bit different than the book.  Apparently the book ending was first filmed, but then tested horribly, and they changed it late in the game.  Either way, this movie is a decent King installment.  Now to go wish for The Talisman...