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Nazis, drugs, and something resembling the supernatural. These are all the crazy things someone signs up for when they walk into the theater to watch the new movie “Freaky Tales.”
The film was released in theaters on April 4 of this year after debuting in January 2024 at the Sundance Film Festival. With famous names attached to the project, including Pedro Pascal and Angus Cloud, it gained traction quickly.
The movie takes place in the late 1980s in Oakland, California. It follows four different storylines that connect in some crazy plot twists. It also gives a nod to Too Short’s 1987 song with the same name, as he is the narrator the audience hears within the first few minutes.
The first story follows stars Lucid, played by Jack Champion, and Tina, played by Ji-young Yoo, as they try to save the club they frequent. They seem to visit the place often, as they are friends with many people there. But it takes a quick turn when they have to protect it from an active group of Nazis.
As the movie transitions into the next story, we see the two interact with the next main characters, Barbie, played by Dominique Thorne, and Entice, played by Normani. They are an up-and-coming rap duo who get invited to perform alongside Too $hort, played by DeMario Symba Driver. This section follows Entice as she struggles with some anxiety leading up to a show, which she learns to overcome on stage.
After watching their show, we are introduced to Pascal’s character, Clint, as he tries to leave behind his life of being a debt collector. He does what he believes to be his last job, but something goes wrong that leaves his pregnant wife in the hospital. Believing there is nothing else to live for, Clint prepares to give up his life as he learns the news of a shocking survivor.
His story ends not too long after that moment, as we get to meet the Warriors basketball player, Eric “Sleepy” Floyd, played by Jay Ellis, and Cloud’s character, a burglar named Travis. During one of the Warriors’ games, Travis and another burglar are hired by The Guy, played by Ben Mendelsohn, to steal from Sleepy Floyd’s house. Something goes wrong, which leads Sleepy on a murderous rampage for revenge.
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At the end, the main characters from each of these stories come together to shoot a promo video — one of the opening shots of the movie — for a cult-like, self-help organization called Psytopics.
This movie was a rollercoaster from start to finish. After the first two “chapters,” as the narrator refers to the separate storylines, I was unsure of how they were going to connect to the other parts of the film. The interweaving of everything absolutely blew away my expectations.
Almost every character knew another character from a different part without even realizing it. It was insane to watch the pieces connect seamlessly at the end.
I also did not understand what I had signed up for going in, as the trailer does not give much away. But while the amounts of blood and death in the film were unexpected, I would not trade it for anything. Both directors, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, knew exactly what they were going for.
This film was the perfect mix of violence and goofiness, something I feel like most new movies today commonly struggle to find. There was never too much of any character nor plot line, leading “Freaky Tales” to become one of my favorite films of the past few years.