
From the works of some filmmakers, one notices that they put more value in their works as a body of work an emerging trend is that of Tarantino’s ten movie catalog, or Paul Schrader’s “Lonely Man” films that seem to relate with each other in the same film universe. Steven Kostanski, former of the Canadian genre film collective Astron-6, however, seems like he is stocking the shelves of a fictional 1992 Blockbuster Video. Each one of Kostanski’s effects-rich comedy films can be related to an obscure subgenre of the video era with some specific aspects – from post-apocalyptic robotic thrillers (Manborg) to low-budget kid action films like Suburban Commando. For his latest film – Frankie Freako – he instructed in an area which has very few previous examples called the Party Goblin Film.
A gentle reminder that people have not heard about the term Party Goblin Film, the reason is that i have just invented a term out of thin air, but this is a genuine genre and one that will be remembered by someone who was born in or around the mid 1980s. PGF was born from the inspiration of Gremlins, Joe Dante’s film that tells the story of how cute puppet-like creatures turned on their owners and wreaked havoc. As I have pointed out, the 80s movie was the forerunner of a new wave of creepy puppet-focused movies: Critters, Ghoulies, Hobgoblins and that was just the start, more were released by Full Moon Pictures studio with their Puppet Masters series. In time, a line of development branched out from the monster-like evolutionary tree, but it was more focused on comedy that was suitable for families, as illustrated by Munchie released in 1992 or the absurd gnome comedy A Gnome Named Gnorm with Anthony Michael Hall and Stan Winston’s creature. What these films taught was a radical approach that everything doesn’t have to be perfect and there is room for mistakes. Party Goblins!
Congratulations if you found the last paragraph ridiculous and nonsensical! You might actually be a healthy individual. But for those who can understand even a word of the paragraph, we suggest you watch one of this year’s best films – Frankie Freako.
Kostanski’s fellow Astron-6 alum Conor Sweeney plays Conor, an office worker’s cheerleader but a head of a whimp, who might end up losing his job and his extremely beautiful wife for just tying too much to be too straight-jacketed (he is the guy who finds excitement in getting a pizza and orders a pizza with half cheese and the other half cheese!’). The situation, however, does not replicate itself and while Conor’s wife is away for the weekend, Conor is left free to explore other places such as resorting to using a late night TV commercial for a call to 1-900-FREAKO- which is like phone sex – where at least one gets to talk to a strange demon and hear his description of himself which includes partying (and yes, we do understand the curiosity aspect here). As expected, Conor gives in and finds himself picking up the phone as expected- a person comes out in response who is Frankie Freako, bursting through the barricade like Kola Aid from a wall, accompanied by Dottie Dunko and Boink Bardo
Most of the funny- moments in the tape of Frankie Franko are in the least look as comic to the com affiche apart from the experimented nay eclectic fusion between the basic renaissance and slap-faced comedy of the late ’90s.
In the case of Conor, he experiences humiliation when he first encounters the Freakos, for instance, Dottie makes a comical warning shot that leaves Conor with a slit in his neck that he exhibits all through the flick. Later, the Freakos took the famous Home Alone joke to another level in an insane heap of paint cans positioned at every conceivable angle in Conor\’s place. Naturally, this comes on top of the necessary layers of bygone era irony: big mobile phones, big knitted jumper coats, and characters who are reminiscent of sitcom shows on TGIF with the familiar aw-shucks tone of voice. It’s like Wet Hot American Summer только, снова, вразрез. It’s a silly addition to a genre that really didn’t take itself seriously in the first place.
What could have degenerated into a futile exercise in nostalgia actually is saved by the amount of work put into Frankie Freako. Frankie and his friends are definitely puppets. There is no need to try and twist absurd facts (like the scenario always has a few in a corner of the frame with an apparent puppeteer’s arm swinging them into position) – they are decent puppets manufactured by people probably having witnessed dozens of inane movies. The section where Conor subsequently travels into FreakoWorld is cinematographically brilliant in a Phil Tippett’s Mad God kind of way; on par with that, every single wall of Conor’s destroyed place is covered with hundreds of pointless foul-mouthed jokes that somehow have to do with this universe. Even the music: the band Blitz//Berlin composed a song not so much in “John Carpenter” fashion as in “cheap Radio Shack Casio presets” which were appropriate for middle-brow American comedies of the 1990s. As a kid, I frequently hired out terrible things from the children’s shelf in the local video shop, and I’m certain that the same cost came out of it.
Above all else, I am quite surprised by the mere fact that Frankie Freako actually exists – not in a Megalopolis way where it is dubbed to be an ‘impossible production’, but in the idea of having been thought of, and then finding the perfect cast and crew who were able to execute the said idea. Frankie Freako will not be for everyone, of course. It is reasonably, brilliantly stupid, and for anyone who does not get on board within the first five minutes, things are only going to get rough for the remaining eighty – but then again, those are the kind of tepid people who are screaming to be spun around by a certain hard-rocking demon. For the rest of us, Frankie Freako is the party goblin we’ve been waiting for.
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