LOS ANGELES: Twenty years after his breakthrough movie “Clerks,” director Kevin Smith is back with “Tusk” — a dark comedy featuring Johnny Depp as a cop hunting a psychopath who is trying to turn a man into a walrus.

Yes, a walrus.

Industry journal Variety described the quirky horror-comedy-thriller as “somewhere between ‘The Fly’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.”

Depp, almost unrecognizable, plays a Canadian private detective trying to track down a missing US podcaster who disappears when he goes to interview a mysterious old man (Michael Parks, from “Kill Bill“) in the backwoods.

Smith said he and Depp had known each other for 10 years, through their daughters.

“What’s great with him is that you just have to sit back and not do anything, because he does it all so great,” the 44-year-old filmmaker told journalists ahead of the film’s US release on Friday.

The cast also includes Justin Long (from TV shows “Mom” and “New Girl“), who portrays podcaster Wallace Bryton, who is captured when he goes to interview wheelchair-bound Howard Howe (Parks).

“Sixth Sense” star Haley Joel Osment is part of the supporting cast, along with Depp’s daughter Lily Rose, making her feature film debut. In 1994, Smith earned cult status virtually overnight with his first film “Clerks,” based on his own life and made in black and white for $27,000 about staff in a convenience store, their love lives and their customers.

The idea for “Tusk” came from a fake ad on the British website Gumtree, promising free accommodations for anyone willing to disguise themselves as a walrus for a few hours a day.

Smith mentioned the spoof ad on his Internet radio show, and the joke gave birth to an absurd horror-comedy for the big screen.