Frankie Freako

Just got back from the toronto screening of frankie freako. Steve Konstanski, and fellow Astron 6 members Connor Sweeney, Mathew Kennedy (FF), and Adam Brooks are a canadian gem. This movie was a blast. Despite its low budget, You can tell this (pretty much all Kostanski projects) have a key ingriedient to it's fun madness. And that my good friend is heart. This film just like PsychoGoreman, Manborg, the editor, fathers day all have heart. Story is very simple, acting is very good from Connor showing his versatility despite only working with puppets throughout the movie. The SFX/VFX blended so well together creating a world thats beyond what you expect from watching the trailer. This deseves all the praise it gets. I would love to see more movies from this type of universe. If you get a chance, please go and see this movie.

*Gremlins* meets *Evil Dead* meets *Chucky*-but none of it works. It's hard to take this movie seriously, and I'm not talking about the overall tone, as it's clear the aim was to embrace absurdity. However, the execution fails miserably, and as a whole, it doesn't serve its purpose as a movie. Every scene feels more like a sketch designed for children than a cohesive narrative. There are a few chuckles here and there, but nothing genuinely funny. The overwhelming sense of cheapness pervades the entire film, making it hard to view this as a legitimate cinematic effort. I'll give it 2 stars for the nostalgic nod to similar flicks from the '80s, but that's about it.

Steven Kostanski is one of the biggest horror prodigies of the 21st Century thus far. All the films he directed, either solo or together with his Astron-6 pals, are greatly entertaining. The list is already quite impressive. "Father's Day", "Manborg", and "The Void" are my absolute favorites, but also "The Editor", "Psycho Goreman", and his belated sequel "Leprechaun Returns" are very adequate and ingenious horror flicks.

Because of all these aforementioned titles, I went blindly into "Frankie Freako" and fully trusted it was going to be another dementedly fun and gooey trash/horror comedy. What a massive disappointment! It is demented and trashy, alright, but sadly in the most infantile and unfunny way imaginable. The film is a sort of crossbreed between "Critters" and the "Puppet Master" series, but with the dumb humor of failed monster-comedies of that same era; - like "Munchies" and "Hobgoblins". I can't imagine there's any target audience for a dud like this. The story revolves around Conor who's the most boring and predictably structured guy in the world. To prove to himself and to his wife that he can be wild as well, he calls a party-hotline and end up with a trio of psychotic goblins in his apartment. I don't even want to bother summarizing the rest of the nonsense. If you're a fan of the previous work of Kostanski and his pals, skip it. If you're a fan of campy B-horror and 80s homages, skip it. In fact, just skip it altogether.

I was at least 30 minutes into Frankie Freako before I realized I was watching a new film by the writer and director of both Psycho Goreman AND Heart of Karl. I don't know how I could be so irresponsible--I should have had the release date on my calendar months ago!

So this story didn't quite grab me the way some of his past work did. There wasn't really a character that kept me cracking up all the way through on the level of a Mimi, or a PG. My favorite moments were probably with the supervisor played by Adam Brooks--he always seems to find a way to inject wacky, unexpected humor into his scenes. There were plenty of all-star cameos, but I didn't pick up on them until looking over the credits. I was also kind of surprised that the title character didn't really end up doing too many wild, outrageous things. But my sense is that fans of Kostanski's unique world-building will have fun with this one.

It's what you are thinking, it's campy, fun and absolutely ridiculous. Its"horror" maybe but in the same as the old 80's movies like munchies, it really knows what it is. It absolutely hits the mark. Old 1-900 numbers and back in the day how much trouble you can get into when that phone bill comes in. Now I have to fill this space, well. I have been drinking, doing drugs. I have been waiting for Halloween and this is a great movie for that. Besides, this is the same director that did the void(absolutely amazing) and Psycho Goreman (which is one of the most amazing comedy horrors of all time. Absolutely amazing.