PULP FICTION-Style Anthology With Niche Maximum Appeal
FREAKY TALES, an anthology picture that consists of four interlinked tales, is getting a cinema and digital release in the UK from Lionsgate.
It's 1987, and after a curious introduction about possible alien intervention in the town of Oakland in California, we are presented with four stories that take place over more or less the same period of time. The first story has the nicest, most benign punks ever committed to film taking arms against a gang of neo-Nazis who regularly trash the club they attend. The second concerns two female rappers who end up in an on stage rap exchange with the star act at a different club.
The third stars Pedro Pascal as Clint, money collector for a Mr Big, whose 'final' job is to collect a debt from a secret poker game taking place behind the curtain of a video rental store. The store's owner is played by Tom Hanks who gives us a star performance with his monologue about underdog movies. Finally, crooked police detective Ben Mendelsohn's plan to raid the homes of famous basketball players goes horribly wrong when the girlfriend of one of them, Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis), is killed and Floyd decides to enact bloody vengeance with his arsenal of classic martial arts weaponry.
The stories interweave such that characters in one may turn up in another, and everyone is to some extent involved in the final story. It's a lot of fun with a lot of references to cult movies of the period. However, apparently there's a lot more in here to enjoy for viewers who lived in the real Oakland during the time the film is set (locations, personalities some of whom have cameos, etc) which means the maximum appeal of FREAKY TALES could be considered to be rather limited, especially to international audiences who may well have never heard of the place.
Like many anthology movies FREAKY TALES has highs and the occasional head-scratching low. At a running time of 107 minutes the second story could have been cut altogether but by the end you'll probably feel entertained, if perhaps a little confused as to the point of some of it. Here's a trailer:
FREAKY TALES is in select cinemas from Friday 18th April 2025 and on digital platforms from Monday 28th April 2025
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