Freaky Tales, 2025.
Written and Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
Starring Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis, Ben Mendelsohn, Angus Cloud, Keir Gilchrist, Jack Champion, Dominique Thorne, Ji-young Yoo, Max Carpenter, Michael X. Sommers, Normani, Yong Kim Marteen, Dan Marotte, Stephanie Heiner, Mike Infante, Natalia Dominguez, Sedrick Cabrera, D’Angelo Mixon, James Coker, Michelle Farrah Huang, Jordan Gomes, Too $hort, Tim Armstrong, Marshawn Lynch, and Tom Hanks.
SYNOPSIS:
Four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland, CA. will tell about the love of music, movies, people, places and memories beyond our knowable universe.
By the time retro-set interconnected anthology supernaturally-fused crime actioner Freaky Tales ends, it’s still unclear what Captain Marvel writers/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were trying to accomplish. Its narration speaks figuratively and literally glowingly of 1987 Oakland, mentioning alien-reminiscent green light emanating from people’s eyes, weapons, lightning, and how it matches the Oakland A’s uniforms. This narration also speaks of an NBA star (Jay Ellis’ Sleepy Floyd) who would build a school teaching students the art of harnessing this energy for meditation and powerful mind control.
However, each of the four stories feels actively disinterested in that concept. Instead, they opt for blunt realism, reminding viewers of how blatant and unchecked homophobia, racism, and sexism were back then. The world has reverted around to similar horror, so the fact that this film premiered one year ago at Sundance openly labeling these villains as Nazis contains some social relevance today. Here, even that mirror comes across as clunky.
This is not a film that shies away from slurs and depicting hateful behavior, despite a fantasy approach to the material and cartoonish violence that would provide some excuse for toning that evil down. It’s trying to be both a rose-tinted celebration and condemnation of the 1980s, and admittedly immerses viewers into that era, but still suffers from a confounding tonal whiplash. I’m rarely one to complain that a movie is truthfully presenting the ugliness of society, especially from a previous era, but that level of realism adds nothing to a film that also features magical weapons for hurting Nazis and comic book style flourishes, soundbites, and blood spurts.
Worse, Freaky Tales asks viewers to sit through two chapters following around generic young adults hanging around underground punk rock clubs and rap battle scenes. Admittedly, one of those concludes with a brawl against Nazi scum frequently harassing everyone around town, but as mentioned, the comic book approach does it no favors. The closest comparison to make would be confetti exploding out of the heads as the Bear Jew from Inglorious Basterds smashed Nazis.
Putting up a pin in the Quentin Tarantino talk for now, when Pedro Pascal’s world-weary hired muscle, Clint, is properly introduced during chapter 3, one breathes a sigh of relief that an interesting story might be on the horizon. Ben Mendelsohn is also much more present in chapter 4 as a corrupt law enforcement official, although it’s a fairly one-note turn that doesn’t give him much to do beyond flexing his villainous voice. Why this film withholds its star power for almost 45 minutes is a baffling mystery. From there, there are two crime-centric stories containing everything from tragedy to a climactic outburst of violence that, once again, feels inspired by Quentin Tarantino yet also could be the filmmakers’ awkward attempt at blaxploitation. Even when Freaky Tales is fun, it remains head-scratching.
Mostly, it’s bare-bones, clichéd crime and vengeance tropes blended into a whole unaware of its purpose. The official synopsis talks about a connection across movies, music, people, and memories, which is technically ever so briefly present but also sounds like the description of an entirely different film. Freaky Tales desperately tries to provide genre thrills, but primarily struggles. Roughly half of the second-half tales are worth a recommendation, and that’s it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
