Frankie Freako Movie Review
The rules are there for a reason. Look both ways before crossing the street. Keep your voice down in the library. If you introduce a gun in the first act, you have to fire it in the third. There’s no point in arguing about it, just follow the rules. The rules make life orderly. The rules make life predictable. Most importantly, the rules make life incredibly boring.
Speaking of boring, let’s take a look at a young man named Conor. He seems to have the perfect life. He has a good job, a loving wife, and a nice house. He’s the kind of man who follows the rules to a T. And for that reason, he’s quite possibly the most drab, uninteresting wet blanket of man on earth.
Frustrated by his state of affairs, he’s tantalized by a late-night ad beckoning viewers to call Frankie Freako, a travelling Party-For-Hire. Succumbing to his urge to add some excitement to his life, he gives Frankie a call. As can be expected, Frankie and his diminutive cohorts turn Conor’s perfect little life upside down.
Frankie Freako is the latest film from writer/director Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman, The Void), and much like its titular character, the movie knows how to party. Easy comparisons can be made to the likes of Ghoulies, Garbage Pail Kids, Hobgoblins, etc., and while the comparison is appropriate, it doesn’t do the movie justice. While clearly a love-letter to Gremlins knockoffs, Frankie Freako is its own singular vision of monster madness.
There’s no shortage of ‘80s and early ‘90s nostalgia out there, but few movies go beyond neon colors, teased hair, and pop culture references. The thing that made the ‘80s movies so interesting was the complete disregard for reason, logic and basic human decency. Bizarre tonal shifts, inane action sequences, and outlandish special effects are at the core of the ‘80s flicks.
This was especially true if you just randomly flipped to the right channel in the middle of the movie. There’s not much more joyous and whimsical than accidentally catching the most absurd moment in a movie with zero context of why it was happening.
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Now imagine a movie that’s comprised of nothing but those non-sequiturs spewing forth nonstop. Frankie Freako is a lawless, frantic, fever dream of a movie, invoking the best that the weirdo ‘80s had to offer. Equal parts absurdist comedy, monster-mash, crime drama, home invasion, house party and coming of age story, the movie consistently keeps the flow moving in any and all directions. It shouldn’t make any sense.
Yet somehow, Kostanski and his team pulled it off. The movie’s haphazard rhythm and gleefully immature sense of humor tricks you into thinking it doesn’t care about the plot. Any movie proudly displaying Fart Soda has no business being so tightly written. Yet here we are. Each scene flows seamlessly to the next, leading us down a plotline that is always a direct result of what happened before. There’s a consistently logical flow in the sequence of events. Except for the fact that none of the events are logical and none of them make sense.
At the heart of the story is Conor (Conor Sweeney). Maintaining the theme of being a complete contradiction, Sweeney’s performance is simultaneously over-the-top yet also the anchor keeping us rooted in (relative) normalcy. Conor may be the most boring man on earth, but Sweeney’s performance is anything but. Violating the rules of the straight-man role, Sweeney goes toe-to-toe with his puppet co-stars, fighting to be the most ridiculous character on screen at any moment. And more often than not, he succeeds.
This of course is only further evidence of Frankie Freako’s disdain for standard procedure. In a movie where a gang of tiny monsters are the wrecking crew to a man’s stable life, the leading man should not be so funny.
He should be stoic. He should be the foil for the rest of the cast (puppet or otherwise) to engage in their insanity. The main character is supposed to be normal. To do otherwise goes against the rules.
But Frankie Freako doesn’t care about the rules.
Any good party-monster knows that the rules were meant to be broken. The great ones know that some rules are there for a reason. What separates the good from the great is knowing which are which. Frankie Freako navigates that minefield, seemingly with ease.
It may not be to everyone’s taste, but some among us appreciate the absurd and can’t get enough ‘80s nostalgia. If that’s the case for you, go ahead and give Frankie Freako a call.
