I would call “Freaked” a spoof, but a spoof of what?
All I know is that it is something of a cult film and simultaneous antidotal piece of good old fashioned schlock in a decade that took movies very seriously. Even horror was somewhat stern for a long time until Wes Craven injected some humor in to it. “Freaked” feels like something out of 1987 that crept in to 1993 and it still rings as truly one of the more fascinating cult films I’ve ever seen. My memory with “Freaked” goes back to 1994 when my dad rented a copy for me. Little did he know what the hell we were in for, as “Freaked” teeters between completely surreal black comedy and an acid dream splashed on to film.
I seriously don’t remember “Freaked,” I decided, as when I went to view it once again after many years, I was pretty taken aback by how frantic the movie is. Beginning with an opening sequence that looks like a Primus music video, co-director Alex Winter stars as Television celebrity Ricky Coogin. Coogin is the classic sell out celebrity who will hand dignity over to anyone that pays the highest, and he recalls his experience as a mutant to local talk show. Hosted by Skye Daley (Brooke Shields, another shockingly bit of self-aware casting), Ricky recalls meeting with controversial corporation EES products that’s begun producing a toxic substance known as Zygrot-27.
Despite protests from environmentalists, Ricky decides to sponsor the chemical and crafts a way around the protestors, seeking to attack him for endorsing such a hazardous chemical. On the way home, Rick, and his friend Ernie along with an ardent protestor (Megan Ward) Julie, decide to stop by a roadside attraction/Freak Show. Run by Elijah Skuggs, they’re quickly kidnapped and turned in to freaks by Skuggs. Little do they know that, coincidentally, Skuggs has been using Zygrot-27 to mutate his hostages. Now with the trio turned in to deformed monsters, Ricky has to figure out a way to escape and turn back before Skuggs, working with EES, works on a plan to turn the public in to a race of mutants.
Originally “Freaked” was allegedly supposed to be a short horror film, but then transformed in to its own oddball product that is so impossibly hard to place in to a specific peg. It’s a black comedy, a spoof, a satire, a monster movie, a meta-horror movie, and packs in so much surreal imagery, you’ll have a hard time forgetting it. The special effects from Mad George are amazing, with a lot of monsters resembling in the flesh manifestations of Rat Fink’s art. Most of “Freaked” relies on a fairly simple albeit nonsensical premise, but the joy of the film’s off the wall energy and aesthetic is on the surreal characters, and oddly colorful cast. Brooke Shields, Randy Quaid, Mr. T, Morgan Fairchild, and William Sadler, and John Hawkes pepper the screen, as well as Bobcat Goldthwaite as a sock puppet headed mutant.
As an added bonus, there’s an unrecognizable Keanu Reeves, as Ortiz, the dog faced leader of the freaks. “Freaked” is such an out there movie, one that I sat watching with a puzzled face the entire time. It has moments where it’s so weird it’s baffling, but it also has a great sense of humor about itself. If anything it feels so much like a branch off or spin off of the “Basket Case” movies. I could easily picture Worm or mutant Stuey hanging with Belial.