Freaked (1993)

Great Film overall

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The TV journalist Skye Daley (Brooke Shields) hosts the boastful actor Ricky Coogan (Alex Winter) to tell his recent adventure in Central America. Ricky accepts to promote the toxic fertilizer Zygrot 24 from the E.E.S. Corporation in Santa Flan; in return, he would receive US$ 5,000,000 from the corrupt E.E.S. Chairman Dick Brian (William Sadler). He travels with his best friend Ernie (Michael Stoyanov) to Santa Flan and on the arrival, they meet the gorgeous Julie (Megan Ward), who is protesting against the Zygrot 24. Ricky lures her telling that Ernie and he are protesters and she joins the two friends in a trip to the E.E.S. Soon she discovers the truth but they are in the middle of nowhere and she goes with them. They decide to take a detour to see the Freakland Carnival and they meet the owner Elijah C. Skuggs (Randy Quaid) and his henchmen Toad (Jaime Cardriche). Soon they learn that Skuggs is an insane genius that uses a machine that processes the Zygrot 24 to transform normal people into hideous mutants to work in his sideshow. Ricky is transformed in a monster and Julie and Ernie are merged in conjoined monsters. What will happen to our heroes?"Freaked" is a politically incorrect black comedy with a surrealistic story about a sideshow where the attractions are made by the insane owner of the carnival. This film is still funny and cult after watching many times. It is impossible to recognize the uncredited Keanu Reeves, in the role of Ortiz the Dog Boy. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Freaklândia: O Parque dos Horrores" ("Freakland: The Horror Carnival")

When I was young and hungry I started buying a movie related magazine. In one edition they interview the stars of B&T Alex Winter and Keanu "Woah" Reeves, can't remember a thing about it except that Winter said that his next project was a film called "Hideous Mutant Freaks".Now some 20 years passed and I had never heard of it since, in fact I just forgot about it. Until I saw a film called Freaked on the cult rack and absent-mindedly flipped the cover to read the back. And there it was in all its glory, slightly different name but most definitely Alex Winter's baby, released in 1993, which meant I had so far allowed it to slip under my personal radar for almost half of my life. I wondered with my almost obsessive appetite for almost all genres how this could have passed me by, then I watched it.A digression. (1) I really wanted to like this movie. (2) After 16 years of not knowing I wanted to say "don't make the same mistake I did, check out Freaked today". (3) I wanted to bring up Freaked in conversations with mates and tell people that they just have to check out this crazy film.Now with reference to the points above:(1) I didn't. (2) I won't. (3) I won't and you don't.Freaked is somewhat of a throwback, when a star made it big the studio thought "well if that worked let's throw some money at the star and let them make another hit". You might remember such classics as Hudson Hawk (which I actually like and will defend endlessly), Waterworld and Battlefield Earth? Well they all had far bigger budgets than Freaked, but Willis, Costner and Travolta all had far bigger profiles.So back to Freaked, the movie starts with opening credits that strongly resemble an early Red Hot Chilli Peppers video, and in fact one of the lead characters wears a RHCP T shirt in the early going.3 minutes in we get a Brooke Shields sighting. She is a TV presenter explaining the bizarre case of young acting superstar Ricky Coogan, who disappeared after going overseas to try to bring some credibility to a chemical manufacturer responsible for some suspect creations, notably "Vigrot 24″, which is apparently responsible for mutations in humans.The early scenes are all nudge-nudge wink-wink stuff where Alex Winter who plays Ricky Coogan is almost leaning to camera and saying "Isn't this wacky? Can you believe they are letting me get away with this?" The acting is terrible and hammier than Porky Pig, the dialogue is similarly awful and the sets look like they are from a cheap skit show like Mad TV.This is unfortunately a 3 years on Bill and Ted wannabe, only without any sort of meaningful concept that might justify any shennanigans, and without the common sense to cut most of the juvenile, cheesy and puerile stuff that they thought at the time was comedy gold I guess.15 minutes in enter Randy Quaid and I officially lose hope for this as entertainment. Similar to Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, the man has become famous for being there, in the dopey sluts case this is nightclubs and police cells, in Quaid's case he has been in so many cheesy, crappy, overacting movies that for some reason he has become the King of Crap. I just hope his latest film "Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach" (seriously!), changes my opinion of him being a gross out lowest common denominator comedian.Back to Freaked, Ricky Coogan, some chick he is chasing after and his bonehead best mate are lured by the Dr Moreau style guy played by Randy Quaid and mutated into Hideous Mutant Freaks, never saw that coming did ya?The remainder shows how the three, and a cavalcade of allegedly hilarious fellow freaks manage to escape their situation.What I learned:Again make up and FX can be done well without CGI, I must say that Alex Winter's face in particular looks cool, even though his lips don't move when he talks and he still managed to enunciate beautifully.There is more of a debt to R Crumb and even Kenny Everett than any other monster movie here.When you are making a "small" film, having multiple cameos from a bunch of similarly small celebrities doesn't help people decades later who wonder "Who the hell is that?"Mr T didn't have much to do in the early 90s. Snickers should have snapped him up sooner, he couldn't have been cheaper than when this first came out.When you make a no-budget, quirky, self aware "comedy", where the jokes are more about "look who's in it" and "gee aren't we crazy". Anyone remember Monkeybone, Nothing But Trouble or Idiocracy? Didn't think so.A parting gift from the big bad company in the film EES (Everything Except Shoes) "Those who oppose us will stand knee deep in the blood of their children". Seemed weird to me when I watched it, seems weird typing it now, but they actually said it and I think it was supposed to be funny.I never lol'd even once during this film, and I made specific note of how many times I was amused: 5Watch an episode of Futurama and try not chuckle or smile a few times - that'll save you an hour to spend doing something more worthwhile.Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. Another less than pointless vanity project. Perhaps Keanu actually was the smart one! At least he knew his limitations.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

Freaked is the kind of movie that Lloyd Kaufman's company Troma wants to make, all the time, 24/7. And they often do, but with a lack of talent and a dearth of funds, so that the cheesy script that has some real edge to it on occasion suffers from everything else around it being so Z-grade (sometimes this benefits it like Class of Nuke Em High, and other times not at all). But directors Alex Winter (who played Bill in Bill & Ted) and Tom Stern have money, at least enough to pull off some solid special effects make-up, and some genuine comic talent, at least the kind that could go for this kind of thing. And yes, I include Brooke Shields, Deep Roy, Bobcat Goldthwait and Mr. T in this discussion. Also, Alex Winter. And Randy Quaid is there too. For the sake of a film like Freaked, set in Santa Flan and about a crazy hick who creates his own carnival of freaks from a corporate-created toxin, it's just what's necessary (Keanu Reeves is here too, but uncredited).The jokes fly at a clip that is about as insane as imaginable. It has the pacing that is even more reminiscent of a Looney Tunes cartoon, or something really crazy like an underground comic or Ren & Stimpy at their most manic-brilliant. A joke goes so fast and thick, either visual (Rastafarian Eyeballs, I rest my case), or verbal, like the dialog from the corporate toxin-mongers, "Twelve milkmen IS theoretically possible. Thirteen is silly. Looks like there's one milkman too many, Coogan!" That the designs on everybody, Winter, Mr. T, Goldthwait, Reeves (yes, the Dog-Boy he is) is really convincing is one thing, since it's work done for a really outrageous cause. Even little things like the Alfred E. Newman kid comes off convincingly. Did I mention all of the jokes going so much? It is a comedy where overkill is more than a possibility, it is a necessity after a while. From practically the start it's set up like a Pee Wee's Playhouse episode dipped in kerosene and let loose inside of a madhouse (yes, even more than the Playhouse). But the filmmakers bypass going *too* far (if that's possible) by sticking to their metaphorical guns. If you're making a movie about a bunch of freaks where Randy Quaid is the master in charge, why not go for the most crazy things imaginable and crudely so (for example, the seemingly wisest character of the freaks, an eloquent British-voiced earthworm, keeps asking for help to wipe his own ass). This isn't Tod Browning's film, which actually tried for some real heart and depth to looking at actual freaks. It's a gaudy cartoon spectacle, and it's filmed like it and acted like it and for every one joke or gag or pun that falls flat, twenty others hit their targets directly. It even trumps another 1993 comedy, Mel Brooks' Robin Hood, for being so zany that for the right viewer (like myself) you have to catch your breath. If you're in the mood for it, you'll get attached to it pretty quickly. It's got such an array of imagination and absurdism, from gags involving postal worker uniforms to a transformation *into) Brooke Shields as a mutant equivalent, that it either works for you or it doesn't. It did for me, and it's more than likely to hit a nerve with film geeks looking for that kind of obscure mid 90's cult gem.

"Freaked" is pretty abnormal slapstick; an exercise in bad taste and definitely not intended for all audiences to see. Only if you have high tolerance for vulgar pranks, over-the-top performances & effects and really dumb situations, you might end up liking…probably LOVING this junk. This type of "humor", as we'll refer to it, can't really be compared to anything – not even the "Bill & Ted" movies – as it's obscene, mad as hell and extremely offensive. And yet, this is only obvious on the surface, since the screenplay also contains much more effective jokes and occasionally terrific satire towards showbiz and typically American vanity. Alex Winter plays the overly pretentious and greedy movie star Ricky Coogan, who reluctantly accepts a job as spokesman for a giant industrial company. His first mission is to travel to South Africa and promote this dubious company's most recent product – a lethal chemical called Zyglot – but, instead, he and his friends are captured by a grotesque freak-show owner and get turned into circus attractions themselves. Ricky and his partners in misfortune attempt to escape the mutant farm, which leads to all kind of indescribably insane situations. It's downright hilarious to see how major Hollywood stars parody themselves, like Mr. T as the bearded lady or Brooke Shields as the dumb talk show hostess. Several other gags made me laugh so hard I nearly had tears in my eyes! At one point, the freaks try to escape by ALL dressing up like milkmen! Can you imagine what a giant worm or a life-sized sock-puppet look like in a milkman outfit? Some of the grotesque special effects are courtesy of Screaming Mad George, so you can be sure they're impressive. Apparently it was Keanu Reeves underneath the wolf man make-up, yet I only discovered that after looking up the film here on this site. So, YES, the make-up is great! Excellent stuff, but be careful to whom you recommend it!