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Billy Halleck is the villainous main protagonist of the body-horror film Thinner. He was once a polite and dedicated lawyer before being driven insane by an elderly Indian man named Tadzu Lampke's curse, which made Billy continuously lose weight. He served as the archenemy of Tadzu Lampke and his granddaughter, Gina Lampke. He was portrayed by Robert John Burke.
Personality
In the beginning of the film, Billy was shown to be a good man, loving his wife and daughter, never lying when on a case, and even stood up for a group of homeless people. However, after being cursed by a vengeful Native American, Billy starts to become unstable and even murderous. He appears to have an unhealthy habit of eating a lot, which is what gave Lampke the idea for his curse.
Biography
The film begins with Billy greeting his wife, Heidi, and his daughter, Linda. Billy begins eating too much and Heidi calls him out for it, but Billy chooses to ignore her. He is later seen helping his friend, Richie, get out of mafia accusations, before meeting the judge and a cop outside. Later that evening, Billy gets distracted while driving because Heidi was giving him a blow job and ends up running over an old Indian lady, killing her. Charges were dropped as the judge accused Indians of not obeying the law and Billy goes home. Before leaving, a man whispers "thinner" in his ear and strokes his cheek. Billy then notices that he has been losing weight rapidly throughout the next week. At first, he congratulates himself for being more healthy, but he and his loved ones become more concerned as Billy starts getting skinnier and skinnier. Billy tries to go to doctors to figure out the cause, but they weren't able to find out. Things turn for the worst as he notices how much time Heidi was spending with his doctor, Mike. Billy later begins to suspect that the old man placed a curse on him, and later discovers that the judge was also cursed and was now a circus freak. Billy graduatly starts growing unstable from the pain of starvation and his wife's suspected affair, and later visits his cop friend for support, but finds he was cursed to slowly bleed to death for not arresting Billy. The cop attempts to give Billy a gun to kill the old man, but Billy refuses, and the cop shoots himself afterward because of the pain of the curse. This sends Billy over the edge and he runs away to find the old man. He discovers that the old man was named Lampke the father of the woman he run over and was staying with his granddaughter and her fiancé. He later has a dream of being tormented by Lampke and later finds out the judge crashed his car into a truck, just like Billy dreamed would happen. He later locates Lampke to an area full of homeless people and is harassed by Lampke and his daughter, Gina. Billy begs Lampke to remove the curse, but Lampke refuses, since Billy is only apologizing since he is being punished. Billy then threatens to place a curse on Lampke and ends up being shot in the hand by Gina with a circus ball. Billy continues to threaten Lampke, and leaves saying he envoked the curse of "the white man from town". Billy then has a doctor cast up his hand and calls up Richie to help him attack the homeless den. Richie sends a man to poison their dogs, but Lampke and his group kill the man and send his corpse back to Billy, Billy instead sends Richie to shoot up the homeless camp and tricks them into mistakenly killing Gina's fiancé. Richie later assaults Gina with acid and has her tell Lampke to meet Billy at an old lighthouse. Billy arrives at the lighthouse and becomes so weak from the curse, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he finds Lampke had made a pie and cuts Billy's hand to put his blood in the pie. He tells billy that he must make someone unknowingly eat the pie, and his curse will be broken, but whoever eats the pie will die afterwards. Billy remembers his wife's affair and decides to feed her the pie. Lampke pleads with Billy not to kill anyone anyone, so that he can still die as a good man, but Billy orders him to leave. He then returns home and successfully tricks Heidi into eating the pie. Billy wakes up the next morning proud to see that he has stopped hurting and is gaining weight, but discovers that his daughter ate the pie for breakfast and left. Billy begins to weep at the fact his daughter will die as well, and attempts to eat the pie to commit suicide. He stops when he finds Dr. Mike at the door, and tricks him into coming in to eat the pie. It is possible he committed a murder-suicide with Mike.
Trivia
- The scene where Billy murders Heidi is argued by fans to be more tragic in the book than the movie.
It is debatable whether his actions can be justified, since he was cursed over an accident but took things a little too far to end it.
