Freaky Tales (dirs. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck)

by Jack Martin | Apr 17, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 107 mins

UK Distributor: Lionsgate

UK Release Date: 18 April 2025

WHO’S IN FREAKY TALES?

Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo, Angus Cloud, Keir Gilchrist, Marteen, Too $hort, Sleepy Floyd

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (directors, writers, producers), Poppy Hanks and Jelani Johnson (producers), Raphael Saadiq (composer), Jac Fitzgerald (cinematographer), Robert Komatsu (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Four interconnected stories in 1984 Oakland, California…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FREAKY TALES?

With its interconnected collection of non-linear stories, in addition to its rocking soundtrack and absurd levels of violence, Freaky Tales is undoubtedly going to be compared the most to Pulp Fiction. But the film, from filmmaking duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, is surprisingly closer to another Tarantino movie: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which like this is both a vivid celebration of the vast and mesmerising culture of 20th century California, and a surprising slice of alternate history concerning real events that, in the film’s universe, goes into utterly bonkers and unapologetically gruesome territory.

Of course, Freaky Tales isn’t as cohesive as the most recent Tarantino film, nor is it even as smart in its overall storytelling. What it is, though, is pure exploitation movie fun, even if it takes a bit of time to really get into its groove.

The film is set in 1987 Oakland, and is told in four separate chapters, each focusing on seemingly unrelated characters functioning in and around the area. The first chapter, titled Strength in Numbers: The Gilman Strikes Back, sees a group of young progressive punk rockers deciding to wage war against a band of neo-Nazis that frequently torment their club. The second, named Don’t Fight the Feeling, follows hip-hop duo Danger Zone, consisting of Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne), competing in a rap battle against the film’s narrator, rapper Too $hort. The third, Born to Mack, is about mob enforcer Clint (Pedro Pascal) who finds himself in tragic circumstances during his last assignment. And finally, The Legend of Sleepy Floyd takes a look at what local basketball star Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) ends up doing when his house gets robbed by the earlier gang of neo-Nazis as part of a city-wide heist.

Not so much an anthology as it is the same story told from four different perspectives (though not quite to Rashomon levels, either), Freaky Tales nonetheless varies in quality with each chapter. Boden and Fleck approach them with distinct styles, from shifting aspect ratios to grainy shot-on-celluloid filters, enough to where they could almost work as a collection of retro short films. However, the filmmakers initially struggle with overall consistency, with the first two chapters in particular feeling much more disconnected from the wider plot, leaving you wondering at first what the movie is supposed to be about since they feel so sporadic in focus and even tone. Strength in Numbers, for example, has its own self-contained style with imaginative sketch animations and almost intentionally-bad CGI blood, none of which really seeps into any of the following chapters which at times feel like they were all made by different directors. You feel this too with Don’t Fight the Feeling, which is much more traditionally shot and structured compared to what went on in the previous section, but again appears to go nowhere with little indication that it’s all going to lead to something substantial.

It’s not until Born to Mack and The Legend of Sleepy Floyd that Freaky Tales finally finds its rhythm, and luckily it’s not too late for the overall film to make up for lost time. While the latter chapter contains the most outlandish material, and again is the reason why the film is closer to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than Pulp Fiction, that third section feels by far the most complete, with its own intriguing three-act structure and a commanding central turn by Pascal – not to mention an unexpected cameo by a rather significant A-list actor – capturing your full attention as Boden and Fleck also pour a considerable amount of time and effort into their direction and script, more than the other chapters combined. It gets to a point where you wonder why they didn’t just make this section the entire film, since it’s the most developed and certainly the most worthy of being extended to feature-length, for you could watch Pascal work his natural movie-star charm here for hours if you so could, while admiring the steady filmmaking being applied to his intimidating scenes.

While it perhaps plays things a bit too loose with its multi-narrative structure, and even as a whole it’s not quite as substantial as it perhaps believes itself to be, Freaky Tales manages to entertain with endless B-movie thrills, which might earn it a place in the annals of cult movie history if it takes off with certain audiences. There’s something in each chapter, even the weaker ones, for the viewer to latch onto, whether it’s beating and slicing the unholy hell out of neo-Nazi scumbags or watching a surprisingly absorbing conversation in a video rental store about the five best underdog movies of all time. Boden and Fleck are clearly leaning into their inner cult movie fanatics in ways that would make Tarantino blush with envy, and often you feel their passion in the late-80s aesthetic which they mix with 70s-era grindhouse exploitation to largely pleasing effect.

At times, though, you wish that the film as a whole was as consistently entertaining as it gets in its second half. While there’s not much that’s inherently wrong about the first two chapters, they do leave you confused as to what directions the remainder of the movie is going to take, and as such it’s hard to get that sucked into what’s going on when you don’t entirely know the purpose of these seemingly unrelated stories. But once it all comes together, Freaky Tales matches its title accordingly, even if the freakiness isn’t as immediately apparent as it perhaps ought to be.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Freaky Tales is a largely enjoyable collection of inter-connected B-movie storylines that takes its time to find its groove, especially in the first two frustratingly directionless chapters, but offers plenty of exploitation fun as soon as all of the ingredients come together.