Directed by Steven Kostanski of Psycho Goreman fame, Canadian horror Frankie Freako is a homage to mini-monster classics like Gremlins and Critters, and to some extent Beetlejuice as well. Through its characterization, dialogue, and plot progression, Frankie Freako exudes a vibe that typically characterizes 80s horror-comedies. Having a simplistic, ridiculous plot structure, the key hook of the movie turns out to be its funky, silly humor, excellent prosthetic and animatronic work, miniature set design, and its music. Not once does the fact become apparent that the movie had a shoestring budget, as adept cinematography and production do an excellent job in creating a potent immersion of the world of Frankie Freako.
Spoiler Alert
Why Did Conor Summon the Freakos?
Set in the 80s, Frankie Freako focuses on an old-school, boring, naïve corporate employee, Conor, whose timid demeanor and conservative, extremely careful approach make him stand out from everyone else, but not in a good way. Conor’s boss, Mr. Buechler, doesn’t like the way he presents himself and encourages him to be bold in his approach. Conor’s personal life is not going great either, as he is not perceptive enough to pick up the hint that his artist wife, Kristina’s wishes be more romantically involved, and not confident enough to reciprocate her feelings. Even though Conor remains oblivious to these issues, he too feels the need to become more of a forward, risk-taking person, which is why a midnight hotline advertisement for “Frankie Freako,” which promises to spice one’s life up with a party of a lifetime, grabs his attention. As Kristina leaves for a weekend to attend an art conference, Conor decides to call the hotline number, which unleashes the mischievous trio of mini goblin monsters, Frankie Freako, lady cowboy Dottie Dunko, and a mechanic monster, Boink Bardo (whose vocabulary consists only of the word ‘Shabadoo’ and different iterations of it), in his house.Â
Conor realizes how much of a terrible mistake it was to call the number, as within a single night, the monsters, aka Freakos, trash his house in the worst way imaginable, destroy Kristina’s sculptures, and torture him in a number of ways until Conor decides to bring a cross to threaten them in hopes of warding the creatures off using religious iconography. However, it only aggravates Frankie Freako into a demonic state, who proceeds to use his powers to knock Conor out by hurling him across the room. The next day, Conor goes to his office to work overtime, oblivious to the fact that his boss, Mr. Buechler, is trying to get him fired by recording him shredding official documents on his command. In the light of his recent experiences, Conor has a breakdown in front of Buechler, who takes pity on him and decides to pay a visit to his house. The Freakos torture the duo of Conor and Buechler to their hearts’s content and glue the latter to the floor. Conor gets the chance to kill the Freakos on one occasion, but given he isn’t that sort of person, he refrains from taking that drastic step. Instead, the Freakos capture him as Frankie hangs him by the neck.
Who Are the Freakos?
As Frankie decides to provide a history lesson to Conor about their world, he plays a recording on TV that shows that the Freako trio arrived on earth from their home planet, Freakworld, where they used to live in freaky harmony and partied lifelong until 12 years ago, a dastardly Freako known as Munch gained power and became the president of Freakworld. Using mechanical enforcers as Freako killers, Munch took control over everything, enslaved his fellow Freakos, forcing them to work for him on hotlines, and became a business tycoon. Even these little critters aren’t exempt from the horrors of capitalism, it seems. Anyway, the only ones who have evaded Munch’s diabolical control so far are this trio of Freakos who have vandalized Conor’s place, and they use the hotline communication like a conduit to travel between two worlds to escape the tyranny of Munch and party to their hearts’ content.
Seeing Conor almost on the verge of death, the Freakos take pity on him and save his life, and finally tired of fighting the critters for so long, Conor decides to simply go along and party with the Freakos. Conor actually enjoys their company and lets go of his uptight, boring persona for once. However, their merriment comes to a halt when Munch is able to track Frankie down using the hotline calls and sends his mechanical enforcers to capture them. Conor is abducted as well, whom the enforcers bring to the Freakworld to make him Munch’s concubine.
What Happened To Connor At The End?
Munch decides to torment the Freakos by turning Dottie into one of his mind-controlled, evil enforcers and forces Conor to test his freakiness on the Dial of Doom, a device that tortures its subjects on the basis of their freak level. Conor is spared by the device’s mechanism as he is an extremely basic, uninteresting person, and Frankie and Boink manage to rescue him, and they make an attempt to escape from Munch’s clutches. A mind-controlled Dottie attacks them, but her Freako comrades are able to appeal to her senses, which allows her to break free of Munch’s control, and she too joins them, as they somehow manage to escape from Freakworld and return to Conor’s house in the physical plane.
However, Munch, who has turned into a Freak Lord, arrives at Conor’s house as well, whom Conor manages to distract for a while to save his new Freako friends. Boink hits upon a plan as he creates a makeshift cross using tools, and as he directs it towards Frankie, he is once again turned into his demonic self, and now with his enhanced powers, he easily kills Freak Lord Munch. Conor and the Freakos rejoice, until he receives a call from Kristina, who reveals that she’ll be arriving shortly, which sends Conor into panic mode given how badly their house has been wrecked up. Conor tries to fix things with the help of Freakos but fails to do so, and as Kristina arrives, he has a mental breakdown in front of her, as he blames himself for all the mess. However, Kristina reveals the truth, that she had been acquainted with the Freakos, especially with Frankie and Dottie, for a long time, and wanted them to provide Conor with a new, freaky perspective on life. As for the condition of the house and sculptures, Kristina doesn’t mind a little bit of an outlandish update. Kristina and Conor thank the Freakos and invite them to stay for Christmas, while Buechler is revealed to still be glued to the ground in the basement of their house.
Conor didn’t really change his perspective and approach that much by the end of the movie, but Kristina was able to acknowledge that his heart is in the right place, and that’s what counts more than anything. The success of this movie could ensure more freaky adventures with the Freakos, and for the sake of old school campy horror fun, which is hardly mainstream these days, I hope the movie finds an audience.
