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Where do I
start discussing such a remarkable, passion filled independent
movie like this one. I will say straight off the bat that I am
a filmmaker and I love independent movies, particularly independent
movies with the heart and love of filmmaking that Freak Out has.
The movie focuses on Merv a horror movie geek and general simpleton
and his tormentor/friend Onkey. Now don’t get me wrong they
are friends but at every turn Onkey loves to ridicule Merv in
wonderfully silly and puerile ways. Enter a psychotic mask wearing
serial killer that can’t cope with the sight of blood and
is a staunch ‘meat is murder’ style vegetarian. After
the necessary horror movie shower scene and a razor blade confrontation
Merv has a realisation that he could mould this lump of questionable
serial killer clay into a lean mean killing machine. Once Onkey
gets involved in the montage driven training sequence things get
way out of hand and the spatula wielding potato sack wearing maniac
gets out of hand, killing anyone that cheeses him off. So as any
good friends would do Merv and Onkey leave the madman on the side
of the road, leaving him to meet Less Than Jake, the police and
anyone else that gets in his way en route to getting his revenge
on the two morons that trained him up!
This is a wonderful
movie from start to finish and in the trend of all the classic
independent horror comedies of previous years (Bad Taste, Revenge
of Billy the Kid, Undead), it doesn’t fail to relentlessly
ply the viewer with endless jokes and gore. Freak Out is reminiscent
of the previously mentioned films but by no means a copy of any
of them, its cool original take on slasher movie stereotypes is
refreshing in a time where endless low budget straight-to-video
slasher movies are flooding the market - Freak Out takes a massive
machete swipe cutting them all to pieces in one easy motion. Its
handheld camera work and simplistic yet artistic lighting creates
a fantastic form of chewing gum for the eyes, making sure that
you never want to miss a glimpse of some other random moment or
image imputed into the frame. It’s also worth pointing out
the sound design in the film as it is a factor often overlooked
by independent horror movie makers. Thankfully this is not the
case in Freak Out. The use of sound is well thought out and placed
within the 5.1 soundscape and the DTS master also sounds fantastic
and in places when shots didn’t work out the use of sound
to replace what was there previously is the work of a very clever
director.
Freak
Out is a film that won’t be for everyone but then what film
is? This is an enjoyable bit of craziness and fun from a wonderfully
skewed point of view, there is some wonderful vision and a hell
of a lot of care and work that goes into making this film the
crazy fan favourite that it deserves to be. If you like horror
and you like comedy this is a sure thing.
- Dr. Octopene
Extras
The
extras are extensive on and they are just as bizarrely entertaining
as the movie itself. The massive Making Out documentary is a wonderful
illustration of how much fun the cast and crew had making the
film and how protracted and complicated the shoot was. It also
shows the abject torment applied to members of the cast and crew
that happen to simply be in front of the video camera at the right
moment, or even those who are simply not doing what they are told
by the people who are telling them. Add to the extras all manner
of weird featurettes from internet critic discussions, music videos,
and parodies of Mr. Rodriguez’s film schools to a short
film about how to trick anyone you know into becoming a bum feeler.
There are two enlightening and ‘View Askew’ level
funny commentaries and an array of deleted scenes all introduced
by Christian James, Dan Palmer and Yazz Fetto. This is a DVD with
an array of extras that are going to keep you entertained for
some time. The only downside to these extras is the lack of serious
technical specs and hard knowledge about how they actually made
the film, and for a low budget film of this magnitude this would
have added a slightly more serious edge to the extras, but in
thinking about that statement maybe
that’s the reason these type of extras aren’t on the
DVD.
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