History Literature / Thinner

** The film also makes it more explicit that [[spoiler: his daughter ate a piece of pie and was presumably infected with the curse too if it didn't stop with one victim]]. while in the book he only suspects it, albeit with good reason, after seeing two plates in the sink.

* MagicalRomani: ''Thinner'' is about an ancient Romani man who casts the book's titular GypsyCurse as well as several others. How it works is never really explained, whether only Lemke himself can cast magic, whether all the gypsies do, or even whether it's just the Lemkes--in the film, his granddaughter Gina is somehow able to hear a conversation between Billy and his partner staring out the window at his law firm from across the town square.

* BaitAndSwitch: In the movie, when Richie confronts Gina in the barn, he opens up a mason jar that seemingly contains acid and throws the contents onto her face. After she screams in pain:
-->'''Richie''': You scream again, and I'll kill you. You just got a face full of soda pop and baking soda.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: After having his clan be terrorized by Ginelli, the old Romani decides to relent because of this:
-->'''Tadzu Lemke:''' Then your friend comes. He poisons dogs, shoots guns in the night, uses his hands on a woman, and threatens to throw acid in the faces of children. Take it off he says-take it off and take it off and take it off. And finally, I say okay as long as he gets out of here! Not from what he did, but from what he will do-he is crazy, this friend of yours, and he will never stop. Even my 'Gelina says she sees from his eyes he will never stop. "But we will never stop either," she says, and I say, "Yes, we will. Yes, we will stop. Because if we don't, we are crazy like the town man's friend."

* MagicalRomani: ''Thinner'' is about an ancient Romani man who casts the book's titular GypsyCurse as well as several others.

* CruelTwistEnding: The movie pushes the ending towards this with the added subplot of [[spoiler: Dr. Mikey, who Halleck suspects his wife is cheating on him with. After the original ending, he's just about to tuck in to a piece of pie, Dr. Mikey knocks on the door...and he invites him in for a piece of pie.]]

* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler: Poor Linda doesn't make it thanks to Billy's pie, which was intended for his wife.]]

* SparedByTheAdaptation: Richie isn't killed by the Romani in the film.

** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. This causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature as well as making a [[JustForPun mocking pun]] on the idea of the ''Scales'' of Justice.

''Thinner'' is a 1984 novel by Creator/StephenKing, published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.

* RevengeMyopia: Lemke holds Halleck completely accountable for his daughter's death, even though she was jaywalking in the middle of the night.

* PapaWolf: The reason why Taduz Lemke curses Billy, Judge Rossington, and Sheriff Hopley? All three of them were culpable in his daughter's death and the lack of justice only made him angrier.

* PapaWolf: The reason why Taduz Lemke curses Billy, Judge Rossington, and Officer Hopley? All three of them were culpable in his daughter's death and the lack of justice only made him angrier.

* SympatheticMurderer: Taduz Lemke. He inflicts one unique GypsyCurse each on three people, with the full intention of it killing the victim, in one way or another. And yet he's doing this to avenge his daughter's death at the hands of a white town man when the supposed justice system failed to properly do this. Hopley, one of his victims urges Halleck to see things from Lemke's point of view:

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In both the book and the film, [[VillainProtagonist Billy Halleck]] gets the GypsyCurse on himself lifted by forcing the sorcerer to place it inside a pie. [[spoiler:Billy feeds it to his wife (whom he hates), before his daughter (whom he dotes on) eats a piece of it by mistake. Wracked with guilt, [[DrivenToSuicide Billy then eats the pie himself]]. The movie added a subplot of a man that Billy suspects his wife is sleeping with, who rings the door right at that moment. Billy invites him in so he can have a slice of pie as well.]]

* AmbiguousSyntax: [[spoiler:Lemke's warnings about the curse being transferred "whoever" eats the pie make it a bit unclear if it will just kill the first person to eat from it, or anyone who eats a piece, making it slightly ambiguous whether Billy's whole family dies from eating the pie or just his wife, especially in the movie]].
* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke places a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death, as well as the two men who helped cover it up. [[spoiler:Any sympathy you had is diminished, however, when they brutally murder a bystander paid to give Richie a signal, just to send the protagonist a message.]]

* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop. [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey could qualify also, as do the Romani (at least in the movie) once Richie enters the scene.]]

* BodyHorror: The curses. Given that Halleck is the main character, we get to hear exactly what the ''[[TitleDrop Thinner]]'' curse entails -- a weight loss of two pounds a day. Great if you are a morbidly obese man, as Billy is when the novel begins. Not so much when he starts to lose ''too much'' weight. Protruding bones, headaches, brittle hair, jaundice, heart arrhythmia... which all happen to be [[ShownTheirWork symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa.]] Despite not having an appetite at all (it's left up in the air whether or not it's a side effect of the curse, or Halleck's own guilt) he eats like a horse anyway because when he once skipped a meal, instead of losing two pounds, ''[[OhCrap he lost three.]]''
** The other two curses, while shown is less detail, are still scary as hell. Judge Cary Rossington develops a severe condition where his skin grows scales, while Police Chief Duncan Hopley develops giant zits all over his body that makes him look like "human pizza."
** The ultimate result of eating a slice of the cursed pie. In the book, Lemke warns Billy that whomever eats it will not only takes on his withering curse, but it will be five-fold ''stronger''. In the film, it is mentioned that the curse will be stronger but we also get a chance to see exactly ''how'' [[spoiler: when Billy gives his cheating wife a slice... The pie completely desiccates her body and turns her into a bizarre corpse-pie mishmash. Which Billy then [[{{Squick}} kisses]]. And then ''[[ImAHumanitarian eats]]'', nibbling on a bit of crusty lip that Billy espouses as delicious... But then reminds himself that he probably shouldn't have too much of.]]
* BratsWithSlingshots: Gina Lempke, great-granddaugther of Tadzu Lempke, is highly skilled with a slingshot, and even performs with it for money. She uses it to shoot a ball bearing through Billy's hand when he comes to the Romani camp to demand the curse is taken off, and it's strongly implied she killed Frank Spurton, the man Richie hired to spy on the Romani, with it.
* CelebrityParadox: Halleck's doctor tells him at one point that he's "starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel". (King originally published that book under his PenName Richard Bachman, and made this reference to throw people off.)

* CruelTwistEnding: The movie pushes the ending towards this with the added subplot of [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey, who Halleck suspects his wife is cheating on him with. After the original ending, he's just about to tuck in to a piece of pie, Dr. Mikey knocks on the door...and he invites him in for a piece of pie.]]
* CursedWithAwesome: Billy Halleck is cursed to rapidly lose weight even if he consumes eight thousand calories in one day, which is awesome at first because he was originally overweight and at high risk of heart problems. However, once it gets to the point where Billy is rapidly approaching the underweight category, and again at high risk of heart problems, the "Awesome" element is dropped entirely.
* DaddysGirl: Billy's daughter, Linda. Billy notes to himself that Linda goes to her mother with questions like how many calories are in a piece of German chocolate cake, but when she has questions about sex, religion and similar difficult subjects, she goes to him.

** In revenge to this, Gabe tracks down his henchman, kills him, gouges his eyes out and stuffs a dead chicken in his mouth with a note mocking them saying that they won't remove the curse on Billy.
* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler: Poor Linda doesn't make it thanks to Billy's pie which was intended for his wife.]]
* DownerEnding: Both the film and book versions end with [[spoiler:Billy's wife and daughter eating the cursed pie. While Billy intended to curse his wife, he did not mean have his daughter eat it. Wracked with guilt, Billy decides to commit suicide by eating a piece of the pie as well. The film version goes further, as Billy invites a man he suspects has been cheating with his wife to have some pie along with him...]]

-->'''Tadzu Lemke:''' Then your friend comes. He poisons dogs, shoots guns in the night, uses his hands on a woman, threatens to throw acid in the faces of children. Take it off he says-take it off and take it off and take it off. And finally I say okay as long as he gets out of here! Not from what he did, but from what he will do-he is crazy, this friend of yours, and he will never stop. Even my 'Gelina says she sees from his eyes he will never stop. "But we will never stop either," she says, and I say, "Yes, we will. Yes, we will stop. Because if we don't, we are crazy like the town man's friend."

** Scheriff Hopley, who's face becomes covered in horrific, massive zits and pustules, making it look like he's rotting alive.
** Taduz Lemke himself, who's nose has been eaten away by cancer.
* FatBastard: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Billy Halleck is a seemingly nice guy with a good marriage and is a doting father (his daughter in fact [[DaddysGirl prefers Billy to her mother]]). However, he is clearly aware of his firm's tie to TheMafia, and is in fact good friends with a man who may be the head of the local mob family. After the accident, he doesn't deliberately use his connections to get him out of trouble, but he does nothing to dissuade them either. There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.

* AFriendInNeed: When his wife fails to believe he is cursed (and in fact conspires with a local doctor to commit him to a Mental Institution should he return home), Billy turns to [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], a Mafioso who he is acquainted with. Richie sends Billy a doctor, then shows up himself to wreak havoc on the Romani until they agree to lift the curse. [[spoiler: He dies for his troubles, but accepted that fact beforehand.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Neither the book nor the movie really have a bad guy or a good guy. Billy Halleck is a bit of an asshole, but not evil, just a privileged white guy who can't bring himself to take responsibility for his actions, and desperate to avoid a painful death through a supernatural curse. Taduz Lemke is, understandably, furious over the death of his daughter, but said death genuinely was accidental, and consigns three men to agonizing deaths over it, heavily spurred on by the institutional racism he's faced his whole life.

* HeroAntagonist: The Romani act as this to Halleck's VillainProtagonist, however [[spoiler: becomes [[HeWhoFightsMonsters sub]][[TautologicalTemplar verted]] when they murder a bystander paid to give Richie a signal, just to send the protagonist a message.]]

* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: After tracking down the Romani camp, Billy and Richie start targeting Lemke's family to force him to remove the curse. In the book he terrorizes and shoots up the place while making some cold threats against people. In the film Richie kills his granddaughter's husband and threatens to scar her face with acid, Lemke gives in and puts Billy's curse in a pie (although in the book he kills Richie as well).

** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. Causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature, as well as making a [[JustForPun mocking pun]] on the idea of the ''Scales'' of Justice.

*** It could be seen that he helped both the Judge and Halleck ''save face'', but could not save his own face, as well as his "rotten" nature.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: The entire story. Originally Billy gets away with little more than a slap on the wrist thanks to his connections but it turns out the old Romani that touched him actually gave him a devastating curse that causes him to waste away to nothing. And it wasn't just Billy who got cursed; the judge and police officer who helped him get away with it ''also'' get their just desserts with karmic curses...
* KarmicTwistEnding: [[spoiler:Halleck gets the Romani to remove the curse from him. The Romani places it into a pie, and tells him whoever eats it will be cursed in his place - or he could eat it himself, which ''would'' kill him, just a lot less painfully than starving to death would. He takes it home for his wife to eat, as he now hates her for giving him the handjob that caused him to run over the woman. She does... but so does his daughter. Oops. Guess he'll have a piece himself.]]
* TheMafia: Halleck's friend, Richard Ginelli is an Italian mob boss, who uses his connections to terrorize the Romani.
* MagicalRomani: ''Thinner'' is about an ancient Romani man who casts the book's titular GypsyCurse, as well as several others.

* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself. Taduz Lemke even tells Billy that he feels a bit sorry for him when they meet for the last time because he can't take responsibility; "You tell yourself you can't be asked to pay for it - there is no blame, you say. It slides off you because your shoulders are broken."

* OlderThanTheyLook: Taduz Lemke is 106 years old, but looks much younger. Billy thinks that the old woman he ran over was Lemke's wife or sister, and is shocked to found out that she was his daughter.

* RedShirt: Richie's employee Frank, who is killed quickly without doing anything of importance or real interest.

* SpoiledSweet: Linda is doted on by her father, and is one of the story's most sympathetic characters. She's upset without being bratty about the conflict between her parents, and shows some naive curiosity without being judgmental to either side when asking Billy about what happened with the car crash in the book.

* TheTopicOfCancer: As their curses worsen, denials set in for Halleck, the judge, and their wives. Cancer is blamed and feared to be the cause in place of the less rational reality.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In both the book and the film, [[VillainProtagonist Billy Halleck]] gets the GypsyCurse on himself lifted by forcing the sorcerer to place it inside a pie. [[spoiler:Billy feeds it to his wife (whom he hates), before his daughter (whom he dotes on) eats a piece of it by mistake. Wracked with guilt, [[DrivenToSuicide Billy then eats the pie himself]]. The movie added a subplot of a man that Billy suspects his wife is sleeping with, who rings the door right at that moment. [[KillEmAll Billy invites him in so he can have a slice of pie as well]].]]

* PlayingGertrude: Irma St. Paule, who played the woman Halleck runs over in the film, was one year older than Michael Constantine, the actor who played her father. (Of course, it is hard to find 106-year-old actors, and the guy isn't supposed to look 106.)

** ''Unknown'' - Sheriff Hopley's curse. The name of the curse was not given, but it gives him horrendous acne. And by "horrendous", We don't mean "looks like chickenpox" - We mean... well...

** ''Unknown'' - Sheriff Hopley's curse. The name of the curse was not given, but it gives him horrendous acne. And by "horrendous", I don't mean "looks like chickenpox" - I mean... well...
--->Hopley's skin was a harsh alien landscape. Malignant red pimples the size of tea saucers grew out of his chin, his neck, his arms, the back of his hands. Smaller eruptions rashed his cheeks and forehead; his nose was a plague zone of blackheads. Yellowish pus oozed and flowed in weird channels between bulging dunes of proud flesh. Blood trickled here and there. Coarse black hairs, beard hairs, grew in crazy helter-skelter tufts, and Halleck's horrified overburdened mind realized that shaving would have become impossible some time ago in the face of such cataclysmic upheavals. And from the center of it all, helplessly embedded in that trickling red landscape, were Hopley's staring eyes.

Adapted into a [[TheFilmOfTheBook 1996 movie]], with Creator/RobertJohnBurke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Creator/KariWuhrer as a Romani (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).

* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself. Taduz Lemke even tells Billy that he feels a bit sorry for him when they meet for the last time because he can't take responsibility; "You tell yourself you can't be asked to pay for it - there is no blame, you say. It slides off you because your shoulders are broken." Also applies to Lemke who seems to forget that his daughter was jaywalking in the middle of the night, though as Hopley points out, she was ''75 years old'', half-blind, possibly senile, and could have been trying to cross the road for any number of reasons.

-->All his life he's heard a bad deal called a dirty gyp. The "good folks" got roots; you got none. This guy, Halleck, he's seen canvas tents burned for a joke back in the thirties and forties, and maybe there were babies and old people that burned up in some of those tents. He's seen his daughters or his friends' daughters attacked, maybe raped, because all those "good folks" know that gypsies fuck like rabbits and a little more won't matter, and even if it does, who gives a fuck. To coin a phrase. He's maybe seen his sons, or his friends' sons, beaten within an inch of their lives... and why? Because the fathers of the kids who did the beating lost some money on the games of chance. Always the same: you come into town, the "good folks" take what they want, and then you get busted out of town. Sometimes they give you a week on the local pea farm or a month on the local road crew for good measure. And then, Halleck, on top of everything, the final crack of the whip comes. This hotshot lawyer with three chins and bulldog jowls runs your wife down in the street. She's seventy, seventy-five, half-blind, maybe she only steps out too quick because she wants to get back to her place before she wets herself, and old bones break easy, old bones are like glass, and you hang around thinking maybe this once, just this once, there's going to be a little justice ... an instant of justice to make up for a lifetime of crap -'

Obese lawyer Billy Halleck, charged with vehicular manslaughter after killing an old Gypsy woman, is acquitted thanks to his connection with the judge. As he leaves the courthouse, the 106-year-old father of the woman places a curse on him that causes him to rapidly lose weight. After learning that the Gypsy placed a curse on the judge (making him grow hideous scales on his face) and his other friend, a cop that lied on the stand to aid him (leaving his face pockmarked with huge zits), Halleck enlists the help of a former client and mob boss to terrorize the Gypsy to lift his curse.

Adapted into a [[TheFilmOfTheBook 1996 movie]], with Creator/RobertJohnBurke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Creator/KariWuhrer as a Gypsy (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).

* AffablyEvil: Richie Ginelli is pretty friendly, if primarily towards Halleck for saving his ass in court. He's extremely vicious towards anyone whom he considers an enemy and goes on a rampage against the Gypsies [[AFriendInNeed to protect his friend and return the favor]].

* AppropriatedAppelation: After the old gypsy derisively calls Halleck "White Man from Town", he uses the phrase to intimidate them into taking the curse off.

* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop. [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey could qualify also, as do the gypsies (at least in the movie) once Richie enters the scene.]]

* BratsWithSlingshots: Gina Lempke, great-granddaugther of Tadzu Lempke, is highly skilled with a slingshot, and even performs with it for money. She uses it to shoot a ball bearing through Billy's hand when he comes to the Gypsy camp to demand the curse is taken off, and it's strongly implied she killed Frank Spurton, the man Richie hired to spy on the Gypsies, with it.

** In taking revenge against the Gypsies, Richie kills their dogs with cyanide "treats".

* EvenEvilHasStandards: After having his clan be terrorized by Ginelli, the old gypsy decides to relent because of this:

* FlatEarthAtheist: [[DefiedTrope Defied]] by Richie Ginelli. After Billy's disastrous first encounter with the Gypsies, Richie surveys his emaciated friend and immediately concludes that he's been cursed. The mobster says that while he may be an atheist, he's also willing to face facts:

* AFriendInNeed: When his wife fails to believe he is cursed (and in fact conspires with a local doctor to commit him to a Mental Institution should he return home), Billy turns to [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], a Mafioso who he is acquainted with. Richie sends Billy a doctor, then shows up himself to wreak havoc on the Gypsies until they agree to lift the curse. [[spoiler: He dies for his troubles, but accepted that fact beforehand.]]

** Billy employs private detectives to track down the gypsy camp, and later those same detectives are looking for Billy for his wife, but none of them ever appear in person, we just see their reports and have Billy consider ways to evade them in his head.

* HeroAntagonist: The Gypsies act as this to Halleck's VillainProtagonist, however [[spoiler: becomes [[HeWhoFightsMonsters sub]][[TautologicalTemplar verted]] when they murder a bystander paid to give Richie a signal, just to send the protagonist a message.]]

* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: After tracking down the gypsy camp, Billy and Richie start targeting Lemke's family to force him to remove the curse. In the book he terrorizes and shoots up the place while making some cold threats against people. In the film Richie kills his granddaughter's husband and threatens to scar her face with acid, Lemke gives in and puts Billy's curse in a pie (although in the book he kills Richie as well).

* InvestigatorImpersonation: Richie bluffs his way into the Gypsies' trust with a false [[FBIAgent FBI]] ID.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: The entire story. Originally Billy gets away with little more than a slap on the wrist thanks to his connections but it turns out the old Gypsy that touched him actually gave him a devastating curse that causes him to waste away to nothing. And it wasn't just Billy who got cursed; the judge and police officer who helped him get away with it ''also'' get their just desserts with karmic curses...
* KarmicTwistEnding: [[spoiler:Halleck gets the Gypsy to remove the curse from him. The Gypsy places it into a pie, and tells him whoever eats it will be cursed in his place - or he could eat it himself, which ''would'' kill him, just a lot less painfully than starving to death would. He takes it home for his wife to eat, as he now hates her for giving him the handjob that caused him to run over the woman. She does... but so does his daughter. Oops. Guess he'll have a piece himself.]]
* TheMafia: Halleck's friend, Richard Ginelli is an Italian mob boss, who uses his connections to terrorize the Gypsies.
* MagicalRomani: ''Thinner'' is about an ancient Gypsy man who casts the book's titular GypsyCurse, as well as several others.
* MoralityChain: Billy surprisingly acts one towards Richard Ginelli, asking the latter not to hurt anyone as he sets out to scare the Gypsies into lifting the curse.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Billy Halleck finally takes responsibility for his actions when he discovers that his daughter, who was in no way responsible for Susanna Lemke's death, has eaten a slice of the Gypsy pie and is doomed to die of the curse that Billy Halleck brought upon himself and passed on to his wife for jerking him off. He decides to eat a slice of the Gypsy pie himself, choosing to join his wife and child in death.]]
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Richie isn't killed by the gypsies in the film.

** The gypsy who cast the curses does actually have cancer, which accounts for the [[BodyHorror hole where his nose used to be.]]

* {{Irony}}: Deliberately invoked by the curses [[DesignatedAntagonist Taduz Lemke]] inflicts...

* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: Averted, but Lemke suggests this to Halleck when giving him the pie. The pie would transfer the curse from him to whoever ate it (since it now contained the curse), and lift it from him. But Lemke suggests he eat the pie himself rather than make someone else suffer for him. "Die clean, white man from town. Die clean."]]

* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself. Taduz Lemke even tells Billy that he feels a bit sorry for him when they meet for the last time because he can't take responsibility; "You tell yourself you can't be asked to pay for it - there is no blame, you say. It slides off you because your shoulders are broken." Also applies to Lemke who seems to forget that his daughter was jaywalking in the middle of the night.

* NotSoDifferent: As soon as Billy learns that Susanna Lemke was the old man's daughter, he [[DownplayedTrope briefly]] [[HeelRealization muses over]] the vengeance he would wreak on someone if Linda were killed.