Frankie Freako takes an Oscar-worthy approach to goofball gremlin terror

Making a great movie is a tall order. But making a great “bad” movie is a steeper challenge. Steven Kostanski has made the great bad movie his calling card: No one is elevating trash into treasure quite like the Canadian FX makeup maven turned director, whose abilities to transcend pastiche and stretch indie budgets into full-blown spectacle in films like Manborg and PG: Psycho Goreman should put him in a league with the likes of Licorice Pizza director Paul Thomas Anderson. That will never happen, though — the masses ain’t out here respecting the cheese!!

And that’s fine. But for those who get it: Kostanski’s latest film, Frankie Freako, is another twisted goofball odyssey full of puppets, slime, and FREEEAAAAKO-ING OUT, MAN. 2024 isn’t necessarily the ideal moment for a mashup of Ghoulies and Garbage Pail Kids with a splash of 1980s party-gone-wrong comedies, but with his retro horror-comedy, Kostanski suggests that maybe it’s always the right moment for something in this vein. If Beetlejuice can stage a comeback in 2024, there’s room in the hearts of moviegoers for Frankie Freako, a mischievous leather-jacket-wearing gremlin-man who loves to boogie and crush cans of Fart soda.

Frankie Freako stars Kostanski regular Conor Sweeney as Conor, a classic ’80s yuppie who’s been ground down so hard by office life that he can’t meet the sexual needs of his sculptor wife Kristina (Kristy Wordsworth). When Kristina leaves town for weekend work, the wayward schlub quietly sets out to stay at home and dust the CD rack. Those plans are interrupted by a mesmerizing ad for the services of one Frankie Freako. Knowing deep down that he needs the jolt of a self-described “Party King,” Conor summons Frankie with a simple 1-900 call — and immediately regrets the decision. Along with two of his fellow freakos, Dottie Dunko the cowgirl and Boink Bardo, who says nothing but “Sha-ba-doo!”, Frankie wreaks havoc on Conor’s house, in an extended rampage that Kostanski stages like live-action Whac-a-Mole.

Kostanski could have been content to just riff on Critters and the joys of bad horror-movie dialogue with Frankie Freako. Sweeney nails the cadence of every schlock actor who’s been riffed on by Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Kostanski’s script tees him up with groan-worthy one-liners that play for laughs from a knowing audience. The set-pieces of the freakos running amok are simultaneously familiar and extraordinary: As Conor’s house is destroyed, each bit of vulgar graffitied profanity or trashed wall art seems perfectly placed and in character. While Wes Anderson’s attention to detail is easier to spot, the Frankie Freako production design team is just as intent on dazzling viewers with every frame.

But Kostanski doesn’t settle for a one-note 90-minute joke. After a bit of chasing the freakos around with a pistol, Conor learns an important lesson in why the freaks are so damn freaky — and he’s soon transported to Freakworld to face off against the Freaklord Munch and his battalion of mechanical freako-killers. Through a mix of lo-fi CG and grotesque latex creations, Kostanski sends Conor zipping through Freakworld, a cartoonish nightmarescape that’s like Ralph Bakshi’s animation come to life. The backdrop feels grungy and alive, in ways that movies at 10 or 20 times the budget (speaking of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice…) never do.

That craft, combined with wailing guitar and an ounce of world-building, elevates Frankie Freako out of pure parody into a hybrid subgenre of real merit that Kostanski basically owns. At a time when horror can feel like a studio executive’s dumping ground for cheap work and attempts at genre-bending may make less business sense, it’s a thrill to see a director like Kostanski go for broke on an absurd pitch and take the execution as seriously as Ridley Scott would on a historical epic.

In a way, it’s the Frankie Freako way: No half measures. Only freaky measures.

Frankie Freako debuts in theaters Oct. 4.