In 1987, he appeared without warning. Sightings were reported on cable channels, especially late-night MTV. A strange, yellow figure awkwardly dancing on the screen, advertising a phone number but with little else information about the product at hand, announced itself as Freddie Freaker. Despite being the decade populated by many bizarre 1-900 numbers, this was a notably weird commercial. Forgotten for years, in the new millennium, the spot got uploaded to Youtube and slowly became a meme. It's not hard to guess that Freddie Freaker was probably inspired by “Gremlins” and its numerous knock-offs. This cycle would come full circle this year, with the latest film from Steven Kostanski of “Psycho Goreman” and “The Void” fame. “Frankie Freako” clearly takes inspiration from the infamous commercial while also paying homage to the likes of “Ghoulies,” “Munchies” and “Critters.” Being a fan of Kostanski's previous work and what I call eighties lil' monsters movies – not to mention also finding Freddie Freaker captivatingly strange – I knew I had to check this one out.
Conor Sweeney works an unexceptional job in an office building and enjoys a sexless marriage with his beautiful, gun-obsessed wife. He's satisfied with his bland existence but, after his boss asks him to commit tax fraud, he's criticized for being boring. Incensed at the criticism, he begins to see television commercials for a phone hotline. It advertises Frankie Freako, a Boglin-like rocker available to spice up your dull life. While the missus is away at an art show, Conor calls this hotline. This invites Frankie and the other Freakos – cowgirl Dottie and gadgeteer Boink – into his home. The rude, crude, party dudes make a wreck of uptight Conor's home. This is only the beginning of an adventure that will see Conor making new friends, travelling to an enslaved alien world, being forced into a harem, battling evil, and learning how to loosen up.
Coming after the delightfully demented gore comedy of "Psycho Goreman," this tonal approach certainly caught me off-guard. However, there are certainly signs that this is more an ironic recreation than an actual product from the nineties. The characters in the film have a distressing obsession with firearms, the film repeatedly drawing attention to the numerous guns. That's taken to its extreme when Conor gets casually shot in the neck, bleeding out for a few additional scenes. The run-up to that non-sex scene feels like something out of a softcore flick. This inclusion of clearly inappropriate material, in fact, helps "Frankie Freako" feel more like an eighties or early nineties kids flick. Kostanski takes this further as the film goes on, with references to concubines, slaps on the ass, and an extended hanging by noose. A more deliberate sense of absurdity is apparent in several moments, such as a random appearance of a bear trap or an excessive amount of glue. This undertones of darker, weirder shit is the sign that "Frankie Freako" is a pastiche made by smart-ass genre enthusiast and not an actual children's film.
Not that I didn't have a good time with "Frankie Freako." The specificity of what Kostanski is parodying here is appreciated. I laughed plenty of times. Conor Sweeney's performance is a masterclass in committing to the bit, playing every scene as intentionally the most vanilla human being to ever live. By the end, I'll admit, I had come around on finding the deliberately annoying Frankie somewhat endearing. If, for whatever reason, a movie had been built around Freddie Freaker, instead of a mere baffling commercial, this is probably a close proximity of what it would've been like. However, it is inevitably not as fully realized as Kostanski's previous features and can't help but feel like the filmmaker and friends are simply fucking around. At the same time, a pitch-perfect riff on "Munchie," as filtered through a Red Letter Media sensibility, isn't the kind of movie that I expected to ever exist. For that reason alone, I'm glad "Frankie Freako" is out there, partying as hard as he can. [7/10]
The first classic monster movies produced by Universal Studios in the thirties were mostly the brain child of Carl Laemmle Jr., the son of the studio’s founder who became head of development in 1928. Laemmle Jr. was a savvy tastemaker, who pushed the company to embrace talkies and big budget productions. That last tendency bit “Junior” in the ass when 1936’s “Showboat” went wildly overbudget. That started a chain reaction that led to the Laemmles stepping down and aviation financer/polo champion J. Cheever Cowdin assuming control of the studios. And Cowdin must have hated monster movies. In-between the June 1936 release of “Dracula’s Daughter” and the January 1939 release of “Son of Frankenstein,” the studio didn’t make a single horror movie. During this two year period, Universal largely focused on cheap westerns, comedies, crime flicks, and mysteries. Despite the apparent abandonment of the genre, sometimes some horror ambiance would sneak into the whodunits of this era. Such as “The Black Doll,” the second film in a series Universal made based on the popular Crime Club pulp novels.
Many years ago, Nelson Rood murdered a business partner in order to gain control of a successful mine. Only his other partners, Mallison and Walling, know this. At his secluded home, while arguing with his nephew about money, Rood discovers a black doll on his desk. His superstitious – and much abused staff – believe this to be an omen of death. Indeed, Rood is stabbed to death before the night is through. His daughter, Marion, is also attacked by a masked man outside the home. Marion’s boyfriend, Nick, is a private detective. While the bumbling local sheriff takes over control of the investigation, Nick digs up his own clues. He discovers a plethora of suspects, including Rood’s sister and her lover. That pesky black doll keeps reappearing throughout the night, preceding more murders.
Old dark house movies were not only defined by creepy mansions and lurking killers in black hats. Slapstick comedy was another ingredient in this genre stew. Like the same year’s “The Missing Guest,” “The Black Doll” also features some overbearing comic relief that nearly destroys the whole movie. In this case, it’s Edgar Kennedy as Sheriff Renick, a big ol’ dumb-ass who stumbles through every scene he’s in. He bickers with his deputies, all of which are as big as hayseeds as he is. He intimidates witnesses with blustering threats. Kennedy does a few prat falls too. The character doesn’t effect the story in any significant way, only contributing to the film by being a foil for the smart-eyed Nick. In other words, if you cut this bumbling jerk out of ‘The Black Doll,” you would still have a decently functioning mystery. Meaning this guy was here primarily to ladle on the yuks. Perhaps I simply do not find incompetent law enforcement as hilarious as cinema goers in 1938 did.
The Crime Club literary label that spawned “The Black Doll,” by the way, was an extremely long-lived and popular line. Doubleday began publishing books under that banner in 1928 and kept it going for sixty-three years, until 1991. In that time, over two thousand titles were published, including many entries in “The Saint” and “Fu Manchu” series. The cinematic Crime Club was not nearly that prolific. Only eleven films were made based on the books, most of which came out in 1938. Of the remaining titles, it doesn’t sound like any nudge into horror as much as “The Black Doll,” so I doubt I’ll be writing about them. However, I am glad I gave this one a look, as it has enough creaky classic horror atmosphere to keep my interest despite the best efforts of that buffoonish sheriff. [6/10]
Despite its prominent place in Spanish pop culture, "Historias para no dormir" only ran for twenty-six episodes in its original form. Narciso Ibanez Serrador returned sporadically to the program over the years, for a one-off special in 1974 and a brief four episode season in 1982. The premise was resurrected as a series of television movies, called "Films to Keep You Awake," in 2003. Notable Spanish directors like Alex de la Iglesia, Paco Plaza, and Jaume Balaguero contributed to that revival, which actually did get distributed over here. Two of those filmmakers would be involved with a more recent reboot, alongside other names like Rodrigo Cortes, Alice Waddington, and Nacho Vigalondo. Now translated as "Stories to Stay Awake," the new version would feature loose remakes of classic episodes, launching on the Spanish version of Amazon Prime in 2021.
Balaguero would handle "El Televisor." Marcos, his wife Daniela, their daughter Carla, and toddler son Lucas move into a new home. After seeing a news report about squatters in the area, Marcos sees a shadowy figure in the pool house. He immediately buys a state-of-the-art security system. He becomes obsessed with protecting his home, watching the security feed on his phone or TV constantly, much to Daniela's concern. The strange activity continues, Marcos seeing strange people on the cameras, sinking more and more into his paranoia. Is it possible something supernatural is happening here?
As a fifty minute long horror movie, "El Televisor" is occasionally effective. The protagonist's paranoia seems largely unfounded but the idea of a strange, unseen intruder in your home is unsettling. The night vision shots of faces appearing before the camera are mildly spooky, even if the scares never quite hit. I found this more compelling as a story of a kind of clueless but otherwise harmless family man, played with an appealing everyman dumbness by Pablo Derqui, growing more unhinged. The final act pats off nicely on the various security features he set-up earlier in the episode. However, the ghosts being actually real seems to thematically middle the waters, though Balaguero knows how to turn the tension up. He definitely overestimates how scary the image of an old woman with a golf club is though. Still, this isn't a bad little chiller to watch in late October. [7/10]
I came of age around the time the Patriot Act was signed. I recall the ensuing debates about personal privacy and whether the government had the right to spy on its own citizens that followed with some clarity. People were very angry. In the ensuing two decades, this argument has been put to rest: The majority of Americans don’t care. Many of them have willingly given up their own right to privacy by filling their pockets with cell phones and their houses with doorbell cameras and security systems. When the inevitable news stories about hackers infiltrating phones and IP cameras to watch or harass people breaks, it’s a wake-up call for a lot of folks that don’t realize what they are giving up when they click “Yes” on those user agreement forms. Earlier this year, a short film dramatizing such an event went viral. “Exposure” is told entirely through the wireless cameras around an average English household. A six year old girl is awoken from her sleep by a voice on her bedroom baby monitor. A man tells her he’s stuck in the camera and she needs to unlock the door so his friend can come free him. The naïve child complies, letting an intruder into the house that is detected by the girl’s mother far too late.
“Exposure” is essentially an update of “Take This Lollipop,” an interactive short that went similarly got passed around thirteen years prior. It depicts how easily our modern, constantly connected society can be infiltrated by predators, which has only grown easier the more online we all are. In this regard, its opening minutes are chilling. Using the night vision filter available on any camera, it shows a little girl rising from her bed and talking to the voice emerging from her nanny-cam. The filmmakers managed to find the most wide-eyed, adorable little moppet they could. The sequence of her easily being conned into leading a creeper into her own home cause a sense of nauseating tension to rise in the viewer. We can only speculate in horror as we helplessly watch these very bad events play out.
The final moments of the short, where it shows other households falling victim to the same creeper, suggests a more insightful story could have been made from these ingredients. I think the general public’s willingness to let cameras into their own homes says a lot about our fear of our neighbors, corporations’ eagerness to exploit its customers, and everyone’s inescapable desire to watch and be watched in return. Instead, “Exposure” settles for being a simple scared-straight story, warning us to be cautious about what we broadcast to a hackable electronic gizmo. An admirable goal, for sure, as I believe a fair degree of paranoia around technology and the internet is quite healthy. (I was never going to allow a Ring device into my home or numb any child of mine to the realities of the surveillance state.) That doesn’t mean “Exposure” is necessarily good filmmaking though, despite the strength of its set-up and early scenes. [6/10]
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