I never read Thinner, the Stephen King-authored "Bachman Book" from which the flick's plotthe flick is drawn. For some time it was considered unfilmmable because it required the lead character -- a fat-cat lawyer under a gypsy's curse -- to reduce from 300 pounds down to a ghoulish 40 (or so). Through the magic of special effects and makeup, King's "vision" is brought to life for me to cough up seven hard earned dollars on.

And special effects are about all we get here. There's certainly no script, especially since it's hard to decide if the film is supposed to be horror, action, suspense, even comedic. Acting? Let me put it this way, the talents of two true actors -- Robert John Burke of THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH and Joe Mantegna of fill in the blank -- are wasted from the word go.

More fun (mmm...might be the wrong word) is watching the horribly miscast Michael Constantine (tv's 'Room 222') and Kari Wuher (MTV's 'Remote Control,' BEASTMASTER 2, slutty record company babe on '90210', and Sci-Fi Channel's 'Sliders') as members of the curse-happy gypsy clan.

This was one flick where I wanted to see the effects and if they could successfully carry off the transformation. They do, but director Tom Holland should've paid more attention to creating a tale that rose above a C-grade 'Tales from the Crypt.'