Not every horror film aims to be a thoughtful examination of trauma. Some just want to party. Enter writer/director Steven Kostanski’s FRANKIE FREAKO — having just played at Fantastic Fest — a nostalgic play on the mini-monster movies that populated the ’80s as welcoming gateways into the horror genre for young fans. Despite an emotional core as flat as day old soda and an adolescent humor that requires a certain taste for the fart-joke variety, the filmmaker’s latest nevertheless does its job in providing eighty-plus minutes of silly creature humor that’ll kill at elementary kid sleepovers.
Conor (Conor Sweeney) is as plain as white bread. Bland. Boring. His idea of a crazy Friday night is dusting the house and ordering cheese pizza. So, when his fraudster boss, Mr. Beuchler (Adam Brooks) and sexually starved wife, Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth) both give him the hard truth that he needs to let loose a little, Conor decides it’s time for a change. That opportunity comes in the form of a late-night commercial for Frankie Freako’s Fun Time Phone hot line, promising a good time. One expensive phone call later, and Conor finds himself in the grasp of a trio of monstrous little Freakos, determined to unleash the square’s inner party animal or kill him trying.
GHOULIES. GREMLINS. PUPPET MASTER. These films were staples for myself and most other monster kids growing up in the late ’80s/early ’90s. Clearly, they were important to Kostanski as well, because FRANKIE FREAKO embodies them all in one way or another. From the moment the film opens on a ghoulish yet whimsical score from Blitz//Berlin over a psychedelic tunnel and colorful neon titles, the filmmaker channels the goofy fun that rests at the core of any tiny terror film. At no point does Kostanski intend for any of this to be taken seriously. Whereas the aforementioned films instilled at least some horror, FRANKIE FREAKO leans all the way into the “fun” of those movies and goes hard on the absurd humor… a humor that won’t work for a lot of you. We’re talking a main character in Conor who thinks getting steamy with his wife is holding hands. An entire man who gets glued to the floor. A soda brand dubbed Fart (and yes, the cans fart when opened). It’s silly. It’s dumb (not an insult). And it knows it.
That unabashed goofiness is all part of FRANKIE FREAKO’s charm. No, it won’t be for everyone, and I’d be lying if I said quite a few jokes don’t fall flat on their faces, but it’s hard not to appreciate the nostalgic passion of Kostanski. From rubbery monster puppets to slapstick humor to gangster robots shooting laser beams out of their eyes, this film is like a fever dream memory of late-night channel surfing in the early ’90s. The filmmaker doesn’t just restrain the film to a mini-monster aesthetic. Scenes with Conor and his wife are shot like softcore porn, complete with candle flares and jazz music. The imagery of noir-thrillers also make an appearance, shadowy curtain bars and all. And then of course there’s the Adult Swim cartoonish antics comprised of ball punches and words like “butt” graffitied on Conor’s walls. Kostanski wears his inspirations on his sleeve, whether it’s Frankie’s pal, Dottie (a gun-toting cowboy reminiscent of PUPPET MASTER’s Six Shooter), HOME ALONE-style traps set by the Freakos, etc. One of Freako’s pals is even reminiscent of the Camerahead cenobite from HELLRSAISER III, which is certainly a choice!
Juvenile humor and goofy monsters only get you so far though, and in the case of FRANKIE FREAKO, the film doesn’t have much else going for it. Some of that is due to the decision to shoot the somewhat lifeless Freako puppets in full lighting. Most of the issue is the result of an emotional core as vanilla as Conor himself. Our protagonist’s journey of discovering that there’s more to sex than holding hands isn’t all that compelling, nor is the fizzling chemistry between Sweeney and Wordsworth. This film is like a kid high on Pixie Sticks, flourishes of frenetic energy again and again stopped dead in its tracks by the brick walls of a sugar crush. The highs and lows here are extreme, constantly whipping the audience around between entertaining antics and sleepy dramatic sequences that fail to inspire any feeling outside of indifference.
An amalgamation of late-night TV injected into the veins of the mini monster subgenre, FRANKIE FREAKO manages to overcome its flaws just enough to become a welcome addition to the likes of GHOULIES and PUPPET MASTER. It hits the nostalgia bullseye for those who grew up with movies like this, while providing the sort of middle-school humor that should make it popular at sleepovers (at least it would’ve been in my day). With films like MANBORG, PSYCHO GOREMAN, and now FRANKIE FREAKO under his belt, Kostanski continues to establish himself as a dependable source for that specific sort of bizarre horror flavor that hits just right when the clock strikes midnight and the edible begins to set in. Call FRANKIE FREAKO for a good time.
FRANKIE FREAKO parties in select theaters this Friday, October 4th, from Shout! Studios.
3/5
Preferred pronouns: He/him
Tags: Adam Brooks, Blitz//Berlin, Conor Sweeney, Fantastic Fest, Fantastic Fest 2024, Film Festivals, Frankie Freako, Ghoulies, gremlins, Hellraiser III, Home Alone, Kristy Wordsworth, Manborg, Psycho Goreman, Puppet Master, Shout! Studios, Steven Kostanski
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