Let’s get this straight from the very start: Frankie Freako is a blast. We loved every minute of this retro homage to ‘80s creature flicks. Somehow, it manages to feel like the cult classic you’ve known all your life within minutes of its opening, and that’s no mean feat.
Conor Sweeney plays, errm, Conor Sweeney; a man who seemingly has everything. Boyish good looks, check. Upcoming promotion at work, check. Nice house, check. Smokin’ hot wife, double check. Only problem is, Conor is bland. No, worse than that, Conor is a square. The poor fellow can’t even bring himself to make sweet love to his aforementioned smokin’ hot wife. His idea of a spicy night in is a pizza – one half cheese, the other half cheese – and bed by 8:30. That is, until he comes across a sleazy chatline ad for Frankie Freako while watching reruns of Antiques Connoisseur.
Where it all goes from there, we aren’t going to spoil here, except to say expect a little bit of Gremlins, a soupçon of Flash Gordon’s camp, and a splash of Howard the Duck. Put it like this – you think it’s going to go one way, and it swerves in a completely different direction. Oh, and maybe it ends by becoming your new favourite Christmas movie.
The creatures in Steven Kostanski’s fine feature are exactly as you would expect: rubber-faced, bizarrely expressive, and straddling the line between lascivious and ridiculous. Kudos to their creators and puppeteers. Credit too, to Conor Sweeney for imbuing them with life, through a very knowing performance that adds the sublime to that ridiculousness.
We don’t really want to say much more than that, other than watch it, love it and don’t forget to let your freak flag fly.
FRANKIE FREAKO is on digital platforms from July 14th.
