We had the trailer for Frankie Freako a little while back, and it looked amusing, so I asked for a screener. It was from the director of Psycho Goreman, which was a way better movie than it should have been.
Frankie Freako stars Conor Sweeny, Adam Brooks, Kristy Wordsworth, Rob Schrab, Rich Evans, and Mike Stoklasa. You know those last two from Red Letter Media.
The Story
The story is another take on an old trope:
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?
Conor (Sweeney) is a square. There’s nothing interesting about him. He complains if a coffee order is wrong, and ‘sex with the wife’ is basically holding hands. The open scene with this was funny, as his wife is stupidly hot.
While she is away, he has the weekend to himself to tidy the house. He sees an advert for a cool hotline, Frankie Freako, and decides to prove he is not a square, and calls it. What then happens is Cat in the Hat, but we miss the main party.
Conor wakes up the next day, the house is a mess, and Frankie, Dottie and, umm, the other one (I forget its name), are in the house. A clean-up is needed, and Conor has to head to work.
The boss gets involved at the house, falling for Dottie, which is beyond weird. We learn about how Frankie and pals got there from another universe. Conor ends up in the other universe, showing it’s cool to be square, and saves the day.
The Cast
Most of the cast are perfectly acceptable, although I will give credit to Sweeney, he carries the movie well with the script he has. Conor is the type of square we have all known – anal retentive, OCD about the smallest of things, and a ‘likeable pain the ass’.
The main problem I found with the movie was Frankie and his friends. When you look at movies from the 80s, like Gremlins, Gizmo is a character. In fact, I would say that Gimzo is the main character of Gremlins.
Obviously Gremlins is Billy’s story, but Gimzo and Spike are both big deals. The same as the critters in Critters, the cat in the hat in The Cat in the Hat, or the ghoulies in Ghoulies, they all have to be ‘good’.
In Frankie Freako, the main issue is that Frankie and friends are, well, crap. The movie is supposed to be set in the 1980s, but even 80s puppets were good, look at The Muppets, those things were real, they looked real, the talked real and the puppeteers were brilliant.
Here, Frankie is just badly done. If I were to guess, I would say because they wanted it to look like the 80s, but it didn’t work. It made them just forgettable. Gimzo had a personality, and let’s face it, we all thought he was cute and didn’t want to see him die.
I felt nothing for Frankie and his friends, their screen time is limited, the script is limited, and they were just kind of ‘background’ actors, like Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem from The Muppets, you knew of them, but they aren’t the main focus.
Overall
Frankie Freako is a nice homage to the 80s movies of the same ilk, but you can’t fake the 80s today. Movies like this end up trying too hard, and it doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, the style of the movie is fun, but it’s not the 80s.
The entire thing just feels camp, which, if you like that kind of thing, can be fun. I was torn, I did like the idea of Frankie Freako, but the feel if just ‘off’ and it was the puppets that were off-putting.
As I said, Gizmo was a main character in Gremlins, without saying a word. Here, Frankie and the gang just aren’t interesting enough to hold attention. It’s a shame, because with a bit more energy from them, it could have been a lot more fun.
Frankie Freako is a fun movie. I did laugh through it, it’s good, but not great. I’m giving it a middle-of-the-road 2.5 out of 5 stars. You might get more out of it, but it’s not a movie I would return to.
Frankie Freako will be on VoD on the 14th of July.