Frankie Freako (2024) Review

Frankie Freako (2024) Review

Workaholic yuppie Conor is in an existential rut until one night he catches a bizarre ad for a party hotline hosted by a strange dancing goblin: Frankie Freako. Could this be just the recipe to spice up his boring life?

Written and directed by Steven Kostanski (PSYCHO GOREMAN, THE VOID), comedy-horror FRANKIE FREAKO is a homage to classic 80’s movies like GREMLINS, GHOULIES, and CRITTERS. Kostanski’s movie falls short of the extremely high standard set by Joe Dante’s 1984 comedy/horror blockbuster settling between both GHOULIES and CRITTERS in terms of its likeability.

FRANKIE FREAKO certainly captures the look of the latter two with its cheap and cheerful aesthetic capturing the look of a straight-to-video flick from the mid Eighties. However, it unfortunately also serves as a reminding for why such movies tended to bypass a theatrical release. On paper FRANKIE FREAKO reads like it should be fun but instead becomes one-note and wearing instead, just as GHOULIES and CRITTERS did.

Kostanski delivered the goods with his previous flicks PSYCHOGORMAN, MANBORG and THE VOID whereas FRANKIE FREAKO became boring very quickly and reminded me of why I never stooped to pick up rental releases from the lower shelves of my local Blockbuster. Such titles were there for a reason – TROLLS springs to mind – and if this were the mid-Eighties that lower shelf would be exactly where you’d find this title and deservedly so too.

Frankie Freako will be available on Digital Download from 14th July

Watch the trailer here: