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** 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 Hopley develops giant zits all over his body that makes him look like "human pizza."
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* AffablyEvil: The mafioso 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]].
* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death, Halleck, and on 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.]]
* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death, Halleck, and on 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.]]
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* AffablyEvil: The mafioso 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]].
* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemkewho place places a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death, Halleck, and on 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.]]
* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke
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* BigBad: You could argue that Billy himself is the villain of the story seeing as his responsible directly or indirectly for most of the bad things that happen
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[[quoteright:266:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ea277046b2743d2ecf464435a63c1824.jpg]]
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'''''Thinner''''' is a 1984 novel by Creator/StephenKing, published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.
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* HeyItsThatGuy: Who'd have thought that [[TheSimpsons Fat Tony]] would be willing to help out Film/RoboCop3 with his curse problem?
** He probably should have stuck to [[Series/CriminalMinds helping track down Un-Subs.]]
** He probably should have stuck to [[Series/CriminalMinds helping track down Un-Subs.]]
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on 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.]]
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck death, Halleck, and on 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.]]
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie states that he can accept a supernatural cause because his high-stakes criminal lifestyle ''demands'' that he recognize threats when they appear -
and refusing to acknowledge an obvious threat such as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
and refusing to acknowledge an obvious threat such as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie states that he can accept a supernatural cause because his high-stakes criminal lifestyle ''demands'' that he recognize threats when they appear -
- and refusing to acknowledge an obvious threat such as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
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stories his grandparents have told him.
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies that he can accept a supernatural cause because of stories his grandparents have told him.
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies states that he can accept a supernatural cause because his high-stakes criminal lifestyle ''demands'' that he recognize threats when they appear -
and refusing to acknowledge an obvious threat such as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
-->I believe in what I see. That's why I'm a relatively rich man. That's also why I'm a living man. Most people, they don't believe what they see. ...Some guys– a lot of guys — don’t believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they eat or drink or think or believe. Me, I don’t believe in God. But if I saw him, I would. I wouldn’t just go around saying ‘Jesus, that was a great special effect.’ The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. And you can quote me.
stories his grandparents have told him.
and refusing to acknowledge an obvious threat such as Billy's curse would be ''suicidal''.
-->I believe in what I see. That's why I'm a relatively rich man. That's also why I'm a living man. Most people, they don't believe what they see. ...Some guys– a lot of guys — don’t believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they eat or drink or think or believe. Me, I don’t believe in God. But if I saw him, I would. I wouldn’t just go around saying ‘Jesus, that was a great special effect.’ The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. And you can quote me.
stories his grandparents have told him.
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on 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]]
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on 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]]message.]]
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* 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.]]
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** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. Causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature.
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** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. Causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature.nature, as well as making a [[JustForPun mocking pun]] on the idea of the ''Scales'' of Justice.
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* 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.
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* TheTopicOfCancer:As 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.
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The Old Country is when the foreigner\'s place of origin is not specified. Ginelli is very clearly Italian.
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies that he can accept a supernatural cause because of [[TheOldCountry stories his grandparents have told him.]]
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* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies that he can accept a supernatural cause because of [[TheOldCountry stories his grandparents have told him.]]
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-->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 -'
make up for a lifetime of crap -'
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-->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
to make up for a lifetime of crap -'
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* 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.
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* 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:
-->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 -'
-->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 -'
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Made into a movie in 1996 with Robert John Burke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Kari Wurhrer as a Gypsy (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).
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Made into a movie in 1996 with Robert John Burke Creator/RobertJohnBurke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Kari Wurhrer as a Gypsy (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).
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''Thinner'' is a 1984 novel by Creator/StephenKing, published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.
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->''When your wife and kids get killed in a plane crash, you don't want to listen to how circuit A fucked up switch B, and traffic controller C had a touch of bug D and navigator E picked the wrong time to go to shithouse F. You just want to sue the shit out of the airline … or kill someone with your shotgun. You want a '''goat''', Halleck. You want to hurt someone. And we're getting hurt. Bad for us. Good for him.''
->--'''Sheriff Duncan Hopley''', on revenge.
->--'''Sheriff Duncan Hopley''', on revenge.
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->--'''Sheriff
-->-- '''Sheriff Duncan Hopley''', on revenge.
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* AffablyEvil: The mafioso 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]].
* 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.]]
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Mobster Richie Ginelli adores his Italian mother and loves to keep her around.
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** The movie pushes it towards a CruelTwistEnding 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.]]
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* ArcWords: After the old gypsy derisively calls Halleck "White Man from Town", he uses the phrase to intimidate them into taking the curse off.
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''
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* ArcWords: AppropriatedAppelation: After the old gypsy derisively calls Halleck "White Man from Town", he uses the phrase to intimidate them into taking the curse off.
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''off.
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''
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* FatBastard: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Billy Halleck is a seemingly nice guy with a good marriage and is a doting father (his daughter in fact 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. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.]]
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* 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).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. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.]]
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* GallowsHumor: After Halleck becomes emaciated: "You finally found a diet that works!"
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on the two men who helped cover it up.
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on 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]]
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* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop. [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey could quailify also.]]
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* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop. [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey could quailify qualify also.]]The gypsies qualify as well (at least in the movie) once Richie enters the scene]]
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* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself.
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* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself. Also applies to Lemke who seems to forget that his daughter was jaywalking in the middle of the night.
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* AntiVillain: Taduz Lemke who place a curse on the man responsible for his daughter's death Halleck and on the two men who helped cover it up.
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* BigBad: You could argue that Billy himself is the villain of the story seeing as his responsible directly or indirectly for most of the bad things that happen
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* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop.
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* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop. [[spoiler:Dr. Mikey could quailify also.]]
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* 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 as well. 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.]]
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* 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 as well. 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.]]
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* {{Roma}}
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* {{Roma}}UsefulNotes/{{Roma|ni}}
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* CouldntFindAPen: A threatening message is sent to Halleck written in chicken's blood.
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* 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.
**The gypsy who cast the curses does actually have cancer, which accounts for the [[BodyHorror hole where his nose used to be.]]
**The gypsy who cast the curses does actually have cancer, which accounts for the [[BodyHorror hole where his nose used to be.]]
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->''When your wife and kids get killed in a plane crash, you don't want to listen to how circuit A fucked up switch B, and traffic controller C had a touch of bug D and navigator E picked the wrong time to go to shithouse F. You just want to sue the shit out of the airline … or kill someone with your shotgun. You want a '''goat''', Halleck. You want to hurt someone. And we're getting hurt. Bad for us. Good for him.''
->--'''Sheriff Duncan Hopley''', on revenge.
->--'''Sheriff Duncan Hopley''', on revenge.
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* HeyItsThatGuy: Who'd have thought that [[TheSimpsons Fat Tony]] would be willing to help out RoboCop [[TheOtherDarrin 3]] with his curse problem?
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* HeyItsThatGuy: Who'd have thought that [[TheSimpsons Fat Tony]] would be willing to help out RoboCop [[TheOtherDarrin 3]] Film/RoboCop3 with his curse problem?
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''Thinner'' is a 1984 novel by Creator/StephenKing, published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.
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.
Made into a movie in 1996 with Robert John Burke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Kari Wurhrer as a Gypsy (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).
----
!!''Thinner'' contains examples of:
* ArcWords: After the old gypsy derisively calls Halleck "White Man from Town", he uses the phrase to intimidate them into taking the curse off.
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The passages supposedly in the Romani language are, in fact, in Swedish, and mostly gibberish.
* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop.
* AutoErotica: Halleck hit the old woman because his wife was giving him a handjob while he was driving.
** The movie changes it to a blowjob.
* 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.]]''
* 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.)
* CreatorCameo: Creator/StephenKing appears as Dr. Bangor, who owns the pharmacy outside where the accident happened.
* 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.
* DrivenToSuicide: The judge and the cop eventually both kill themselves. [[spoiler: So does Halleck at the end, probably]].
* FatBastard: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Billy Halleck is a seemingly nice guy with a good marriage and is a doting father (his daughter in fact 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. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.]]
* FatSuit: Burke had to wear one to play the obese lawyer at the beginning.
* 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 wreck havoc on the Gypsies until the they agree to lift the curse. [[spoiler: He dies for his troubles, but accepted that fact beforehand.]]
* GypsyCurse: Three, to be precise: The titular one, the "lizard" one on the judge, and the mega-acne one on the cop.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Who'd have thought that [[TheSimpsons Fat Tony]] would be willing to help out RoboCop [[TheOtherDarrin 3]] with his curse problem?
** He probably should have stuck to [[Series/CriminalMinds helping track down Un-Subs.]]
* HotGypsyWoman: Gina Lemke is one. Kari Wuhrer plays her in the film.
* ImpaledPalm: Gina shoots Halleck through the hand with a slingshot.
* {{Irony}}: Deliberately invoked by the curses [[DesignatedAntagonist Taduz Lemke]] inflicts...
** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. Causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature.
** ''Unknown'' - Sheriff Hopley's curse. The name of the curse was not given, but it causes horrendous acne to crop up on Hopley's face, neck, and back. And by "horrendous", I don't mean "looks like chicken pox" - 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.
** ''[[TitleDrop Thinner]]'' - Billy Halleck's curse. Causes him to drop two pounds a day... until he is erased completely. It's initially a boon due to Halleck's morbid obesity, but he quickly learns that the weight loss will never stop on its own...
*** Additionally, Billy Halleck's doctor was initially advising him to lose weight to prevent his getting a heart attack. Once Halleck loses enough weight, he actually comes ''closer'' to dying of a heart attack than he ever did when he was overweight.
* 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 as well. 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.]]
** The movie pushes it towards a CruelTwistEnding 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.]]
* TheMafia: Halleck's friend, Richard Ginelli is an Italian mob boss, who uses his connections to terrorize the Gypsies.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Halleck says this almost word-for-word in the movie, when he finds out that [[spoiler: his daughter had some of the cursed pie that he brought home for his wife.]]
* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself.
* 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.)
* 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 by cursed starvation.]]
* {{Roma}}
* 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.
* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies that he can accept a supernatural cause because of [[TheOldCountry stories his grandparents have told him.]]
* VillainProtagonist: Billy Halleck, who is dealt a GypsyCurse and uses desperate means in an attempt to get it off... and yet clearly is enough of an asshole that he deserves it.
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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.
Made into a movie in 1996 with Robert John Burke as Halleck, Joe Mantegna as the mob boss, and Kari Wurhrer as a Gypsy (the ancient one's great-granddaughter, to be precise).
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!!''Thinner'' contains examples of:
* ArcWords: After the old gypsy derisively calls Halleck "White Man from Town", he uses the phrase to intimidate them into taking the curse off.
** ''[[GallowsHumor You finally found a diet that works!]]''
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The passages supposedly in the Romani language are, in fact, in Swedish, and mostly gibberish.
* AssholeVictim: Halleck, the judge and the cop.
* AutoErotica: Halleck hit the old woman because his wife was giving him a handjob while he was driving.
** The movie changes it to a blowjob.
* 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.]]''
* 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.)
* CreatorCameo: Creator/StephenKing appears as Dr. Bangor, who owns the pharmacy outside where the accident happened.
* 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.
* DrivenToSuicide: The judge and the cop eventually both kill themselves. [[spoiler: So does Halleck at the end, probably]].
* FatBastard: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Billy Halleck is a seemingly nice guy with a good marriage and is a doting father (his daughter in fact 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. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped There is blame enough to go around, but no one is willing to accept the consequences for their actions.]]
* FatSuit: Burke had to wear one to play the obese lawyer at the beginning.
* 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 wreck havoc on the Gypsies until the they agree to lift the curse. [[spoiler: He dies for his troubles, but accepted that fact beforehand.]]
* GypsyCurse: Three, to be precise: The titular one, the "lizard" one on the judge, and the mega-acne one on the cop.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Who'd have thought that [[TheSimpsons Fat Tony]] would be willing to help out RoboCop [[TheOtherDarrin 3]] with his curse problem?
** He probably should have stuck to [[Series/CriminalMinds helping track down Un-Subs.]]
* HotGypsyWoman: Gina Lemke is one. Kari Wuhrer plays her in the film.
* ImpaledPalm: Gina shoots Halleck through the hand with a slingshot.
* {{Irony}}: Deliberately invoked by the curses [[DesignatedAntagonist Taduz Lemke]] inflicts...
** ''Lizard'' - Judge Rossington's curse. Causes him to grow scales all over his body due to his cold-blooded nature.
** ''Unknown'' - Sheriff Hopley's curse. The name of the curse was not given, but it causes horrendous acne to crop up on Hopley's face, neck, and back. And by "horrendous", I don't mean "looks like chicken pox" - 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.
** ''[[TitleDrop Thinner]]'' - Billy Halleck's curse. Causes him to drop two pounds a day... until he is erased completely. It's initially a boon due to Halleck's morbid obesity, but he quickly learns that the weight loss will never stop on its own...
*** Additionally, Billy Halleck's doctor was initially advising him to lose weight to prevent his getting a heart attack. Once Halleck loses enough weight, he actually comes ''closer'' to dying of a heart attack than he ever did when he was overweight.
* 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 as well. 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.]]
** The movie pushes it towards a CruelTwistEnding 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.]]
* TheMafia: Halleck's friend, Richard Ginelli is an Italian mob boss, who uses his connections to terrorize the Gypsies.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Halleck says this almost word-for-word in the movie, when he finds out that [[spoiler: his daughter had some of the cursed pie that he brought home for his wife.]]
* NeverMyFault: Billy Halleck blames everybody but himself for his having run Susanna Lemke over, including Susanna herself.
* 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.)
* 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 by cursed starvation.]]
* {{Roma}}
* 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.
* WeirdnessCensor: Billy's wife, his physician, and the specialists he goes to see refuse to believe that Billy is cursed, despite finding nothing wrong with him in any of their tests. [[AvertedTrope Averted by]] [[TheDon Richie Ginelli]], who believes Billy upon seeing him and hearing his tale. Richie implies that he can accept a supernatural cause because of [[TheOldCountry stories his grandparents have told him.]]
* VillainProtagonist: Billy Halleck, who is dealt a GypsyCurse and uses desperate means in an attempt to get it off... and yet clearly is enough of an asshole that he deserves it.
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