Director: Steven Kostanski
Writer: Steven Kostanski
Stars: Conor Sweeney, Adam Brooks, Kristy Wordsworth
Synopsis: Workaholic yuppie Conor is in an existential rut until one night he catches a bizarre ad for a party hotline hosted by a strange dancing goblin: Frankie Freako. Could this be just the recipe to spice up his boring life?
With movies like Manborg and PG: Psycho Goreman, one aspect director Steven Kostanski has mastered is making audiences feel as though they have been transported back to the 1980s. His style of do-it-yourself filmmaking that blends green screen backgrounds and special effects with actual puppets and prosthetic work make for movies that are often incredibly entertaining, fully embracing the era they evoke. In Frankie Freako, Kostanski once again brings these flourishes to his storytelling, crafting another unique and appropriately freaky experience.
Conor (Conor Sweeney) is a workaholic who has left behind many of his passions and creativity along the way, with his wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth) taking notice of this and considering him to be more uptight as of late. While Kristina is leaving for the weekend, she wants Conor to find that spark of fun once again. When Conor sees a commercial with a character named Frankie Freako (Matthew Kennedy) offering an experience that’s incredibly fun and hoping it will prove that he still has some spirit left in him, he calls the hotline wanting to party. However, when Frankie shows up, he brings destruction and chaos with him, and eventually brings Conor on a journey that takes them beyond the world he knows.
Much like the two aforementioned movies, Frankie Freako is very much a love letter to ’80s cinema, from its visuals and animatronic work to its musical score and action sequences. Its self-awareness is prevalent in every moment of its runtime, from the naming of its main characters to embracing the weirdness that ensues as it progresses. Throughout it all, Kostanski’s earnestness and love for the project comes through in spades. The puppetry work for Frankie and his friends Dottie Dunko (Meredith Sweeney) and Boink Bardo (Adam Brooks) is wonderful, and the homages made to movies like Gremlins and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie are present throughout its runtime from the visual look of the characters to some of the gross-out humor provided by them, with each of their “fun” activities getting on Conor’s nerves with each passing minute. The voice work is also stellar, with funny work from Kennedy, Sweeney and Brooks, who bring the gang to life wonderfully.
As a whole, Frankie Freako isn’t a particularly layered story , keeping it focused on its initial premise with Conor and his lack of fun in life. When it is eventually revealed that Frankie is an alien who is on the run from President Munch (Rich Evans, of RedLetterMedia fame), who would rather have them live 9-to-5 lives on the hotline instead of let loose and party, the sci-fi world is brought to life in vibrant and fascinating ways, and adds an extra layer to the proceedings, though it doesn’t spend as much time with this aspect of the movie as it does back on Earth. Conor Sweeney’s portrayal of…Conor, a man who is slowly opening up to everything else life has to offer and eventually coming around to Frankie’s antics and his approach to everything, is very effective, and he’s likeable enough to root for as the movie progresses, but beyond a few moments, the characterization is also fairly limited.
Still, despite some issues, it is Frankie Freako’s commitment to the absurd and over-the-top situations it finds itself in that make the movie an entertaining watch overall, and serve as another reminder of Kostanski’s passion for the era of movies which he evokes and the nostalgic aspects of it that make revisiting the ’80s special, down to 1-800 toll free lines that charge $2 per call.
