Live Freaky! Die Freaky! (2006)

good back-story, and good acting

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

There's a lot to be said about Live Freaky! Die Freaky!. First off it's hands down one of the most bizarre films I've ever viewed in my life combining stop-motion, sci-fi, music, dark humor, and the Manson murders all into one strange little film. The concept itself is undeniably creative and original and unlike anything I've seen before. Unfortunately, the opportunity to do anything even halfway passable with this film is completely wasted in a mess of trying too hard to push the envelope just for shock-value and forgetting to add any substance to the absurdity. The cast consist of almost entirely of musicians including the members of Green Day, Rancid, Blink-182, and more. Billie Joe Armstrong who voices the Charles Manson type character actually does an alright job, but the rest of the cast comes off completely flat and just dull in their voice acting. The acting is the least of this films problems though. As previously mentioned, the entire films seems to be trying to only accomplish offending and shocking the viewer by whatever means necessary. If this film was to be submitted by the MPAA, it would no doubt receive an NC-17 . This is is not a film for the faint of heart as it contains incredibly explicit puppet sex scenes including full frontal nudity, graphic animated violence, drug use, and near constant profanity. This may all sound shocking, but after the first puppet sex scene which is roughly around 10 minutes into the film, it immediately grows tiresome and repetitive and results in a surprisingly boring film despite the chaos that is presented. The film is ultimately a dark-comedy/musical with social commentary on the media and how the Manson murders were handled by them, but it fails in all of these areas thanks to the abysmal writing. It's hard to believe that the script was written by anyone but a 13 year-old boy with the most embarrassingly juvenile sense of humor who just discovered the most vulgar words in the English dictionary. There are a few chuckles to be found here, particularly some sight gags in relation to the medias handling of the Manson murders, but the majority of the humor relies on tiresome jokes which involve the constant use of expletives and the most lowbrow sexual jokes imaginable. These jokes are made even worse that they are dragged out for close to 5 minutes on several occasions. I was hoping that the music would be the saving grace here considering the talent involved, but the songs are almost as awful. The lyrics are complete garbage and the songs are anything but catchy. The film seems to be making an obvious attempt to satirize and make a statement about the way the media portrays celebrities, but it's doesn't appear to be saying anything beyond "Oh, the media glamorizes celebrities and Manson wasn't given a fair trial". The portraying of celebrities is nothing to be shocked by and Manson is a wacko that deserves to be locked up. There's not doubt there is an audience for this out there who will enjoy it simply for it's shock-value and absurdity, but most will probably see for what it truly is. A wasted opportunity for something that could have been unique and original.

Well, I really don't care if the movie sucked, Billie Joe Armstrong and Davey Havok were in it and even though this may sound shallow, THEY ARE SO FRIKEN HOT! Haa, its just too bad Jade isn't in it ... :-( But whatever, I liked the movie just to hear them. That's okay isn't it? Movie quality doesn't matter to this movie, Davey's in it *drool*.I know this probably isn't a helpful comment. I just think its cool that Davey's in a movie ... Um, sorry? Well, the movie's not that great, but for someone like me, who really doesn't give a flying crap, just cares that Davey's in it :-) Oh! And Billie Joe!

Let me start off by saying I am a huge Green Day/Blink 182/Transplants/Rancid. I am also very fascinated by the Manson family. Having said that, I was very disappointed by this movie. I expected to see more of what happened with the nomad that found the book (that is what the summary of it mentions).In fact the summary is false, it says "Their search will soon be over when Charles Manson returns to save them." Unless I missed a major part of the movie, this never happened. This movie was entirely mocking the past, and barely mentions the future. I would like them to make "Live Freaky Die Freaky II" and go in depth with the future. The Soundtrack is good though. It is probably worth the $20 dollars just to be shocked by the movie and to enjoy the original music.

I saw this tonight at a mid-night show at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX. The theater was about half full, and had a good mix of Austinites (from mall-punk kids to grad students to grunge slackers, yay Austin!). All told, I think the theater laughed out loud twice during the entire film. If a midnight movie crowd in Austin isn't moved, then I don't know who would find this film amusing. Even more disconcerting than the images on the screen was the silence in the theater during this unfunny film.The filmmakers try so hard to be offensive, but along the way they forgot to check if it was actually funny. And after hearing twenty-five variations for "c0ck", "p0le", "meat drapes","hatchet wound", "a$shole","anus", etc the movie stops being funny or offensive, and merely turns into a painful joke that goes on for too long, until the point that you feel sorry for the person telling it.