The Shudder Pick of the Month is the Loopy 1980s Ghoulies Homage Frankie Freako
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2024’s Frankie Freako aims squarely at the Nathan Rabin demographic. It’s a throwback comedy geared towards a generation that grew up on Gremlins and its many knock-offs.
Austin Powers wasn’t inspired by James Bond, but rather by the James Bond wannabes that flooded the market in the 1960s, following the zeitgeist-capturing success of the feature film adaptations of Ian Fleming’s iconic series of best-selling books about the heroic, yet misogynistic and problem-drinking spy.
On a similar note, Frankie Freako doesn’t set out to recreate the high-spirited mischief of Joe Dante’s 1984 masterpiece, or its even more transcendent 1990 sequel, but rather the many movies inspired by Gremlins.
I’m talking about movies whose video boxes bewitched me as a movie-mad child with an insatiable appetite for garbage.
Frankie Freako lacks the budget even to attempt to rip off Gremlins and Gremlins: The New Batch. It’s inspired instead by Gremlins knock-offs where puppety oddballs run amok, such as Critters, Munchie, Munchies, Troll, The Garbage Pail Kids, The Puppet Master, and Ghoulies.
It doesn’t even seem inspired by those wildly derivative B movies so much as their posters, which promised more than any film could deliver, let alone creature features with tiny budgets and even smaller imaginations.
Oh, but those ridiculous posters inflamed my youthful imagination! They promised everything, then delivered next to nothing.
Frankie Freako has a minuscule budget but a vivid imagination. I admire any independent production where puppets seemingly account for 90 percent of the budget.
This loving retro comedy stars Conor Sweeney as Conor, an ambitious yuppie and the squarest poindexter this side of Eddie Deezen. He has an improbably, unrealistically beautiful wife who inexplicably accepts him for what he is, which ain’t much!
Conor looks and dresses like a child in a calculator commercial from 1983 and is too rigid and career-oriented to focus on what’s important in life: partying and friendship.
This yuppie dweeb does not realize that the key to a happy life and a happy marriage involves defying authority and destroying property but he learns bodacious truths from unlikely sources.
Conor’s sleazy, ponytail-sporting boss, Mr. Buechler (Adam Brooks), wants to callously exploit his employee’s naivete and gullibility by tricking him into taking the fall for his embezzlement scheme.
The defiantly dorky businessman’s orderly life changes when he sees a commercial for a party line for Frankie Freako, a rebel who looks like a knockoff Garbage Pail Kid and boasts major Spuds Mackenzie energy.
Some of y’all are too young to remember Spuds Mackenzie but he was an outrageous party dog that fucked and, along with kindred spirit Joe Camel, worked tirelessly to get children addicted to nicotine and alcohol, substances with the power to both ruin and end their lives if abused, or even used in a socially acceptable fashion.
Conor calls the party line. His life is instantly transformed.
Frankie Freako materializes in Conor’s home alongside his cohorts Boink Bardo, a slow-talking tech wiz, and Dottie Dunko, a mutant alien cowgirl who attracts the amorous attention of Conor’s sleazy boss after he comes to Conor’s house to help him deal with his unusual problem.
Straight men, being straight men, have a curious tendency to be sexually attracted to anything that resembles a conventionally attractive woman, even if she is a Gremlin or basketball-playing anthropomorphic rabbit. Conor’s sleazy boss has an instant attraction to the mischievous space alien with a Western flair.
Frankie Freako is first and foremost an agent of chaos in Conor’s otherwise dull life. He and his compatriots wreak havoc. They’re all about partying, but it is a measure of the film’s unexpected but welcome wholesomeness that they drink an excessively caffeinated soda called Fart instead of drinking booze or liquid crystal meth.
Conor is so angry at his unwanted visitors that he pummels Boink Bardo so hard that he appears to die. This ridiculous puppet in a demented kid’s film has a perversely straightforward fake death scene.
Frankie might be a raging id, but he seems genuinely traumatized by the prospect of one of his closest friends being dead.
This is an early indication that Frankie Freako is a party animal with a soul and a heart of gold. Frankie isn’t a nihilist. He believes in things. He’s secretly an idealist.
Conor initially sees Frankie and his freaky pals as an affliction, but they soon teach him important life lessons. Frankie consequently qualifies as the world’s strangest and least likely life coach.
Conor and, by extension, the audience learn the origins of Frankie and his pals. They journey to their home planet and meet their evil ruler, who becomes instantly, if inexplicably, sexually aroused by his minion’s human companion.
Our protagonist is initially a goober with nothing going for him. He’s not handsome. He’s not funny. His world seems to revolve around a meaningless job. He’s a nobody going nowhere in a leisurely fashion until a trio of unlikely pals set him on an intergalactic path to heroism.
I was surprised that a movie this inexpensive had the ambition and drive to leave our world behind for one full of puppets. Frankie Freako is insanely resourceful. It makes a very small budget go a very long way.
Frankie Freako thankfully only lasts about eighty minutes. That’s perfect for a project as purposefully silly as this. There is no reason for this to last two hours or even eighty minutes.
This might have worked better as a short film, but in feature-length form, it sustains a kooky but inspired premise for eighty sublimely silly minutes. It did not hurt that the three hosts of The Flop House, one of my favorite podcasts, have voice cameos. If you dig The Flop House (and you should, if you’re reading this here), then I suspect you’ll dig Frankie Freako.
It’s a lot of fun. I suspect the inevitable sequel, Frankie Freako: The New Batch, will be even better!
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