Making a great film is a big task. But making a great “bad” movie is more challenging. Steven Kostanski has made the big bad movie his calling card: No one elevates trash to treasure like the Canadian FX makeup maven turned director whose skills manage to transcend pastiches and defy indie budgets in films like… into a full-blown spectacle Manborg And PG: Psycho Goreman should put him in a league with those like that Licorice pizza Director Paul Thomas Anderson. That will never happen though – the masses out here have no respect for cheese!!
And that’s okay. But for those who understand: Kostanski’s latest film, Frankie freakois another crazy goofball odyssey full of dolls, slime and FREEEAAAAKO-ING OUT, MAN. 2024 isn’t necessarily the ideal time for a mashup Ghoulies And Children’s trash can with a dash of 1980s party comedies, but with its retro horror comedy, Kostanski hints that maybe it is always the right moment for something like this. If Beetlejuice can make a comeback in 2024, there’s room in moviegoers’ hearts for Frankie Freako, a mischievous leather jacket-wearing gremlin man who loves to boogie and crush cans of fart soda.
Frankie freako Starring Kostanski regular Conor Sweeney, Conor plays Conor, a classic ’80s yuppie who has become so overwhelmed by office life that he can’t satisfy the sexual needs of his sculptor wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth). When Kristina leaves town to work on the weekend, the stubborn Schlub secretly decides to stay home and dust off the CD rack. These plans are interrupted by an intriguing advertisement for the services of one Frankie Freako. Knowing deep down that he needs the push of a self-proclaimed “party king,” Conor summons Frankie with a simple 1-900 call – and immediately regrets the decision. Along with two of his fellow freaks, Dottie Dunko, the cowgirl, and Boink Bardo, who says nothing but “Sha-ba-doo!”, Frankie wreaks havoc on Conors in an extended killing spree that Kostanski stages like live action house Whac-a-Mole.
Kostanski could have been content to just fool around living beings and the joys of bad horror movie dialogue with Frankie freako. Sweeney nails the cadence of every schlock actor he’s harassed Mystery Science Theater 3000and Kostanski’s script delights him with groan-worthy one-liners that make a knowing audience laugh. The scenes in which the Freakos run amok are at once familiar and extraordinary: as Conor’s house is destroyed, every bit of vulgar, graffitied profanity or destroyed wall art seems perfectly placed and full of character. While Wes Anderson’s attention to detail is easier to see, the Frankie freako The production design team is equally dedicated to wowing viewers with every frame.
But Kostanski isn’t content with a monotonous 90-minute joke. After chasing the freakos with a pistol for a while, Conor learns an important lesson about why the freaks are so damn freaky – and is soon transported to Freakworld to face the freaklord Munch and his battalion of mechanical freak killers. Through a mix of lo-fi CG and grotesque latex creations, Kostanski sends Conor through Freakworld, a cartoonish nightmare landscape that comes to life like Ralph Bakshi’s animation. The setting feels dingy and alive in a way that films 10 or 20 times the budget (speaking of) would Beetlejuice Beetlejuice…) never do that.
This craft, combined with the wailing guitar and a bit of world-building, elevates the mood Frankie freako from pure parody into a hybrid subgenre of real value, which Kostanski essentially owns. At a time when horror can feel like a studio executive’s dumping ground for cheap labor and attempts to push genre boundaries make less commercial sense, it’s exciting to see a director like Kostanski go all out on an absurd script and execution as seriously as Ridley Scott would with a historical epic.
In a way, it’s the Frankie Freako way: no half measures. Just crazy measures.
Frankie freako hits theaters on October 4th.
