The Movie: Freaks
The Directors: Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein
The Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Lexy Kolker, Amanda Crew, Grace Park
The Story: A bold girl discovers a bizarre, threatening, and mysterious new world beyond her front door after she escapes her father's protective and paranoid control.
The Review:
This movie starts out like Room but super intense and totally different and then crazy things start to happen and before you know it you're like holy poop, this movie is fun! The idea is very original and is sort of in the same world as Brightburn with it's dark and somewhat tragic take on what a world might look like if there was people with special abilities. The movie feels much bigger than it is thanks to some clever world building that teases a much larger scale with events that had recently happened as well as stuff that will happen right after this story ends.
If nothing else, this movie made me curious to see more but I'm still happy with the story that does play out on screen. Emile Hirsch is kind of all over the place and I mean intentionally because his character is so desperate to keep his daughter, played by Lexy Kolker, safe from being discovered. It was also interesting to see Bruce Dern in a role that gives him a chance to let loose and have some fun with a quirky character like what we see him as in this movie.
The creators of the film, Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, clearly have a lot to say about societal issues including things like bullying, mental health, racism, classism, family, and communication, and using some really far out concepts is a great way to not feel like the messages are being force fed to the viewers. I found all the of the characters very relatable and it was very easy to understand where each of them was coming from and why they were making the decisions they made. There was no good and evil, right and wrong, it was more about differences of opinion and not understanding who people are which led to fear and negative actions.
I think first and foremost this is a horror movie with all the other genre stuff woven in and fleshed out as the movie progresses. There is a lot of mystery involving people, how they do certain things, why they do certain things, and what type of realities they are loving in. I'm trying hard not to spoil anything here with any specific examples and I want you to know that what makes it do good is that the film makers don't sugar coat anything and, even when it comes to the young girl, all bets are off when it comes to what she's capable of.
The Verdict:
Freaks is a fun movie that looks at familiar topics in a completely new way by combining the horror and super hero genres and I feel like this story is one we've really been wanting to see but hasn't been available to us yet in cinematic form. One final thought that just popped into my head is that this movie is more of an X-Men movie than any X-Men movie has ever been.
Freaks is an official selection of FrightFest 2019.
To keep track of all my reviews, interviews and festival coverage please go to: TwoOhSix at FrightFest 2019
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