The anthology movie has a long history stretching back decades that takes in those Amicus/Hammer horror anthologies to films like The Twilight Zone and even Tarantino has directed one of the films in the long forgotten ‘Four Rooms’ anthology, But where Tarantino was far more impressive was in his second and arguably best film ‘Pulp Fiction’ that took three stories and intertwined them all in a brilliantly compelling manner that saw the film’s format copied endlessly and often miserably. It’s a trend that has mercifully petered out but Freaky Tales revisits the tradition with a film of four tales written and directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck.
Set in 1987 Oakland the film sets out its 80’s vibe with throwback film styles of the era and an area where a luminous alien substance that along with green lighting that appears in the back of shot that connects the four stories. Those four stories include a far right gang trashing a music venue’s audience who decide to fight back, a pair of female rappers at a rap battle, a debt collector taking on his boss, and a basketball star fighting back against local low life criminals. Apart from the debt collector story the others are all inconsequential with little that makes them stand out except the last story that’s a full on gorefest that owes as much to Cronenberg as it does to Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’, itself a homage to Shaw brothers movies.
The debt collector story features Pedro Pascal seeing the error of his ways and facing off to Ben Mendelsohn, both great actors and both really the stand out stars in the whole anthology. With the characters from each story crossing over into the others it becomes a little self-referential and the QT homage continues with a video store clerk riffing on Top Five films that’s played by a major A-list star cameo.
Boden & Flack had huge success helming the billion dollar busting ‘Captain Marvel’ and Freaky Tales seems like their reward to make a film of their own liking. Unfortunately despite all the neat little flourishes : on screen animation , gory deaths, and appalling 80’s fashion – the stories themselves are paper thin without any clever spins on the tropes that Tarantino managed with his acute understanding of genre and his supreme command of story structure and Freaky Tales has none of this.
related feature :The violence that Tarantino will never use in his films
related feature : Oscar winning make up genius Howard Berger reveals the Kill Bill secrets and that crazy 88’s scene
Here’s the Freaky Tales trailer…….
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