Frankie Freako (Steven Kostanski, 2024) Review

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“He's like a little gremlin guy who likes to party.” Take off that cornflower blue corporate tie and set aside prurient interests, because it's time to go hog mild in semi-safety with a bodacious trio of rambunctious, hyper-caffeinated, knee-high troublemakers whose sole purpose is to turn your beige life upside down...

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“Shut your flapper and listen! Your sweet talk ain't gonna work on me, honey. I've heard it all.” Arrogantly dull office drone Conor (Conor Sweeney, Father's Day) has a big presentation coming up on the exhilarating topic of Sector Subdivisions, but he's simply far too bland to pull of such a feat of suit and tie razzle dazzle. He's the sort of man who doesn't swear, balks at the presence of caffeine in soda pop, and whose sexual prowess peaks at hand-holding with his ever-patient modern art sculptor wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth).

With a big promotion on the line, Conor needs a hefty dose of spicing-up if he wants to impress his boss Mr Buechler (Adam Brooks, The Editor). Dozing in bed, an advertisement for a raucous phone chat line appears – for the ultimate party animal: Frankie Freako (Matthew Kennedy, Manborg), a 'rock n roll party guy' who's always down for a good time. But is this buttoned-down slab of Milquetoast up for a wild ride? Well, no – but it does inspire him to shake things up for his presentation: with shit music and corny party hats! However, when he wigs-out at a vision of Frankie Freako, it's just the sort of jolt Mr Buechler needed to dangle the promotion in Conor's direction.

“I went buck wild on this thing, I mean, some of the text is in red for heck sake!” With his wife away for the weekend, Conor promises to help his boss shred some 'unimportant' documents, but he gets sidetracked when he finally caves and calls the Frankie Freako fun time phone line. One whirlwind later and he finds his home trashed, daubed with saucy graffiti like “BUTT” and “OUCH”, with the partying perps still hanging out amidst the mountains of 'Fart Classic' soda cans. Joining leather jacket cool guy Frankie Freako are wild west 'cowgirl cutie' Dottie Dunko (Meredith Sweeney) and Boink, a 'dork who does machines'. Suffice it to say, but the doo-doo's about to hit the fan.

“Okay, so swearing on TV is apparently cool now?” Written and Directed by Steven Kostanski (The Void, Psycho Goreman), and standing as a charming throwback to the video store heyday of Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College and Puppet Master II, the gaudily colourful Frankie Freako combines the oddball humour of the Astron-6 filmmaking collective (a sort of understated quirkiness), with the disorderly party animal attitude from the point of view of a 12 year-old in 1990. Aiming for mostly family friendly PG-13 silliness, Frankie Freako never indulges in the more raunchy humour and titillation aimed at older teens like some of its progenitors did – there's no nudity here, and the violence is fairly soft with minimal, mostly fantastical, gore. The film sometimes feels like it can't decide whether or not it should go further and crank the party dial up to eleven, so it doggedly sticks to its sweetly crude aesthetic and, mostly, succeeds in providing a fun time.

“It's time to bust out your boredom box and call Frankie Freako's fun time phone.” While it lacks a toothier edge, the film undoubtedly has a clearer idea of what it wants to be and how to achieve that than Kostanski's previous film Psycho Goreman, which was frustratingly grating as much as it was darkly comic. With its nineties vibes in full swing – acid wash jeans, clunky old tech, a telephone directory, and the doll-like nature of the freako creatures – Frankie Freako wears its influences proudly. The 'Freako Killer' robots, sent through a portal from the now-dystopian 'Freak World', are reminiscent of Torch from Puppet Master II, their murderously red vision akin to that of a pint-sized T-800, while gunslinger Dottie could almost be the sister of Six-Shooter from the aforementioned franchise.

Style wise, Kostanski is able to loosen the reigns in the third act with a trip to 'Freak World' at the behest of President Munch (Rich Evans of Red Letter Media, joined in voicing duties by Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman), a purple-suited dictator in a Scarface-inspired tower. This razor-toothed baddie has taken control of the land from which Frankie, Dottie, and Boink all escaped in order to keep up the tradition of their people: partying hard … if 'hard' means bowling in the living room, playing Go Fish, and chugging copious amounts of soda pop, that is.

“This is too wild – even for a not square at all guy like me.” The wacky sense of humour – see Mr Buechler hiding behind a desk like a cartoon character, willing Conor to perpetrate corporate fraud – derives consistent chuckles to go along with the farts and burps, while multi-talented Kostanski's flair of visual effects (see his 'W is for Wish' segment in The ABCs of Death II) breathes life into the charmingly simple Freako creature puppets and their dystopian home world, realised with an impressive blending of model work and CGI on a modest budget. If entered into in the right frame of mind, Frankie Freako can be a good old fun time, assuming one is not expecting things to get in the slightest bit raunchy or too gruesome.