Freaked (DVD)
Okay, after an opening like that I'm not sure what you're hoping to read. Let's go for something positive, something hip, something cool. The previews!! They are super rad to borrow my own "throw back" phrasing. The first trailer is for the 1974 classic Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. Even the title is intriguing. Amazing stuff. The next trailer is for a Chevy Chase film that grossed twenty six million way back in 1981. Interest piqued? It's Modern Problems! Okay, in fairness it looks bad right off the start but you find yourself questioning how Chevy went from Caddyshack to this in one short year. The final preview is for License to Drive and I don't need to tell you that anything the Corey's (Haim or Feldman) are involved in is manna from heaven. So do yourself a favor and watch the previews. Revel in their beauty because the next eighty minutes of your life will be pissed right down the drain.
So that's that, right? What? You want to hear about the movie itself? Why? Did you not notice the opening paragraph? Okay, you are a glutton for punishment but here goes. The film opens with highly annoying opening credits. Seriously, we could show these puppies to inmates as torture, then the movie starts. Alex Winter plays a former teen heartthrob being interviewed by a youngish Brooke Shields, before she was sad. The plot is that the heartthrob has been disfigured by a chemical that he was schilling for in a remote South American country. He's telling the story of how he became a "freak" as the movie plays out. It takes place mostly at a "freak show" where other freak victims of the chemical live. Dennis Quaid is the freak master. I think critics throw around terms like "career endingly bad" far too often, but Alex Winter's performance as Ricky Coogan (heartthrob) led to four years without a role of any kind in the movies, and no movies at all since 1999. Maybe this was a willful thing on Mr. Winter's part but it seems to me that people wouldn't have been breaking down his door after this so called "critically acclaimed" comedy. I'd rather watch C-Span all day if that's getting my point across.
However, Alex isn't my main problem with Freaked. No, my main issue is that it's not funny. At all. Not one laugh, not one smirk, not one guffaw. I never said "ha". A few times I may have said "huh", or shook my head at something, but that's the most reaction I could muster for so lackluster a film. It almost ventures into that otherworldly dimension of "unintentional comedy" but it never quite gets there either. Maybe if the audience was drunk? I know intrinsically they are trying to make me laugh, they just go about it the way a four year old who didn't speak English would. By kicking me in the shins mostly. Cosmically unfunny. Whatever the opposite is of comedy, this is it. Like going to the zoo and seeing horses, you kind of just move on and never mention it again. Why would you?
But it's loaded with special features! (Now that's comedy!) A lavish two disk set, complete with commentaries, deleted scenes, the screenplay available for your perusal. Disk two has footage of rehearsals, a look at the building of sets, An Alex Winter makeup session and lots of other crap. This film grossed $29,296 in TOTAL. I'm not sure the masses were really clamoring for its DVD. And yet here it is. If you want a recommendation of throwback movie that nails unintentional comedy I'd try Rad if I were you.
At this point in the review I usually say who this film is for, who should be interested so here goes nothing. You would like this film if you were a makeup artist. You'd like it if you were doing a thesis on what makes things "not funny". You'd like it if you'd never seen a television or movies; you'd consider this an exciting new medium. And you'll like it if you like really terrible movies. Otherwise, stay far far away. Nothing to see here. Keep it moving pal.