DIRECTOR: FRED DURST | SCREENPLAY: FRED DURST, DAVE BEKERMAN | STARRING: JOHN TRAVOLTA, DEVON SAWA ANA GOLJA | RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 30TH (USA)
John Travolta (!) stars in this thriller by Fred Durst (!), playing a crazed stalker named Moose (!), who takes his obsession with movie star Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa!) far too far. Dunbar is the one that Moose wants, and, whether he puts up much of a fight or not, it isn’t long before he’s tied to the bed, Misery-style. Fandom, eh.
Imagine a version of One Hour Photo where, instead of dialing it back to critical acclaim, Robin Williams had gone full Robin Williams in his role as the movie’s psychopath. That’s precisely where John Travolta sits as Moose; John Travolta, gone full Robin Williams.
Hairy, bespectacled and adorned with a horrific mullet (grease certainly is the word… for that hair) Travolta’s Moose is astoundingly bizarre, giving a performance entirely lacking in the ego one might expect from the one-time Pulp Fiction star. Clearly, Fred Durst and low-budget horror bring something out in John Travolta that fans haven’t seen in years. Neither Moose nor the film’s story are particularly original creations, but that lead performance and the blackly funny writing by Durst and Dave Bekerman elevate The Fanatic into something truly special.
Durst knows his audience and plays to it, with plenty of references to the sort of cult horror film one can’t imagine John Travolta having bothered himself with once he’d dusted himself off and hit the A-list post Carrie (hello Friday the 13th, both versions of Maniac).Then there’s the casting of Devon Sawa– Eminem’sfictional psycho fanboy so iconic that internet culture literally named the term ‘stan’ after him. This is a cruel takedown of toxic fandom, filtered through a schlocky B-movie. It could be sharper, more scabrous, or more insightful, but when you have John Travolta chewing up the scenery in a mullet and Hawaiian shirt, everything else sort of disappears anyway.
Not everyone will be on board with Travolta’s broad performance (think Ben Stiller’s ‘Happy Jack’) though, and for those people, The Fanatic won’t hold much appeal. The film is deeply silly, hinging on a bizarre combination of character, actor and performance, and its story has been done many times before, to varying degrees of success. For those of us who can buy in, however, it’s a surprising genre treat. Oh yes indeed.
