Despite being on the receiving end of a curse that's not even that gruesome in comparison to his associates, Billy manages to be pretty unnerving. At first, he's ecstatic that he's finally losing weight, then when it becomes clear that the weight loss is out of control, he gradually loses his mind. His binge-eating transitions from celebratory to desperation as he frantically tries to regain the weight that he's losing. When his wife scoffs at his suspicions that he's been cursed, he loses his temper and starts shouting at her, all the while half-chewed food is spilling out of his mouth, reminiscent of a rabid beast. He then gets paranoid about his wife cheating on him and eventually decides that since she was partially responsible for his curse, he'll kill her with it.
Good lord. Halleck's nightmare, or so we think, of Judge Rossington's scaly, plated, lizard face with chunks of it falling off.
A dual example regarding the makeup and prosthetics used to give Robert John Burke the appearance of a morbidly obese man. While the effects department did an admirable job, there is a slight Uncanny Valley effect at the beginning of the movie, as something about his appearance just looks and feels off. The effect wears off as the viewer becomes accustomed to the way he looks, but it slowly begins to come back as he loses more and more weight. By the end of the movie, he outright plunges into the Uncanny Valley, and yet he looks no different than in real life!
The concept of being afflicted with a curse that will cause you to lose more and more weight until you die.
Chief Hopely's fate, where he has unsightly boils all over his body, orange skin, salamander-like hands and tongue and then shoots himself to avoid spending the rest of his life like that.
Tadzu Lempke is a literal walking Nightmare Fuel. Aside from the creepy and seemingly unyielding power he possesses, his nose is mostly rotted away by a cancerous tumor of some sort. And yes, he uses that spot on his face to intimidate people. His granddaughter, Gina, is no better. In spite of her allure, she's also not one to cross, shooting a ball bearingright through Billy's hand after he invaded their village in an attempt to get the curse taken off of him.
His daughter's death is pretty horrifying and sad: she decides to go to their car and get a coat because she was cold, only to walk out into oncoming traffic and get ran down by Billy while he was distracted by the "service" his wife was giving him and left Dies Wide Open. Not to mention the absolutely terrified look on her face right before she's hit. Plus, Billy's trial is this trope itself and rather Truth in Television; imagine being an outsider or even someone trying to seek justice against anyone with a little money/privilege on their side, only to not just lose that fight, but to have your loved one's name unfairly dragged through the mud as well. Even if he was the film's antagonist, you can understandLempke'sactions here on out.
The gruesome,gruesome fate of Frank, Richie's henchman, After failing to get out of town in a timely manner after being spotted poisoning the gypsies' dogs, Gina and her husband Gabe brutally murder him by stabbing him, gouging his eyes out, stuffing a dead chicken in his mouth and leaving a sign on him in blood saying to leave them be.
Lempke finally tells Billy how to remove the curse; by pouring some of his own blood into a pie and feeding it to someone else. The pie's crust pulsates from the power of the curse.
The ending where Lempke gives him the strawberry pie that he instructs needs to be given to someone he hates and will painfully kill whoever eats it and lift the curse off of him. He gives it to Heidi under suspicion that she's cheating on him. She dies the next morning and Billy gives the rest to the doctor she was supposedly cheating with, but the latter does not occur until after Linda herself eats the pie, innocently believing it to believing a treat for the whole family. It goes to show that you really shouldn't take things without permission.
Billy's nonchalant reaction upon waking up next to his wife's emaciated corpse. He even kisses her on the mouth as a final "fuck you".
Even when Heidi and Mike assure him that there was no cheating going on and the curse has already been passed onto Heidi, Billy still offers Mike a slice of pie for no reason at all.
