Mention the horror movie genre and there are several subgenres under it. From the supernatural to the thriller to the comedic to the slasher to several others, filmmakers have found several different ways to scare audiences to their heart’s content. One subgenre that isn’t tackled enough, however, is the science fiction horror film. That is where the Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky-directed Freaks falls into.
A dilapidated house sees a seven-year-old girl named Chloe (Lexy Kolker) being kept there by her father (Emile Hirsch) who keeps warning her to keep the windows shut. There is evil outside the home, he tells Chloe and if she steps outside, she will be killed as her mother was. As the story progresses, Chloe’s dad begins to reveal some psychic abilities resulting in his eyes bleeding, reinforcing his wanting to protect his daughter from forces who might otherwise do them harm. He tries to get her to remember a story they’ve come up with, something that will help Chloe be adopted by a neighbor’s family, but she isn’t sure if she agrees.
When something is slipped under the house’s front door tempting Chloe, she meets the ice cream man, named “Mr. Snowcone” (Bruce Dern) who implies that he knows a lot about the little girl’s origins. In this world where people with abilities are seen as threats to non-powered humans, the government is hunting them down, including Agent Ray (Grace Park). Can Chloe and her dad stay hidden without revealing who they really are or will they be revealed for the freaks that society fears them to be?
Distributed locally by TBA Studios, Freaks premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival while winning the coveted Asteroide Award at the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival in Italy and the Audience Award at Utopiales in France. Other accolades earned by Freaks include Best Film and the Audience Award at the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival as well as the Silver Raven Jury Prize at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.
It’s been over a decade since Hirsch played the title character in Speed Racer and he looks nothing like Speed in Freaks. In fact, he looks like a much thinner Jack Black who is just scrambling to keep his daughter safe from people who would otherwise hurt the little girl. In Kolker, one can’t help but compare her to Drew Barrymore in 1984’s Firestarter. In that film, little Charlie McGee (Barrymore) has pyrokinetic abilities and her father is trying to keep her from a government that wants to conduct experiments on her.
Kolker doesn’t quite have the name recall that Barrymore did even back then (thanks to her family name and already being a star thanks to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) but she has the acting chops to make one sympathize with their plight. Kolker’s Chloe is all at once a scared child, a ticking timebomb with powerful abilities, and someone who wants to make friends even if it means she has to force people into doing so. Like Barrymore in Firestarter and Heather O’Rourke in the Poltergeist films of the 1980s, there’s just something unsettling about a child having otherworldly abilities because they often are not as comfortable yet in wielding these powers. That dangerous aspect, on top of Kolker’s acting, make her a curious protagonist, something not often seen in motion pictures.
Even at 80-years-old, Dern and his gaunt features still give him enough creepiness to make you think twice if he’s trustworthy or not and make you unsure if he has a hidden agenda in getting close to Chloe. Dern and Hirsch’s interactions with Kolker are probably the most powerful in the film, a credit to both the much older Dern and the significantly young Kolker.
To say that Freaks is very different from what we often see in horror films would be an understatement. Like in the X-Men films, the fear of people with abilities pushes humans to hunt them down instead of trying to get along with them. Unfortunately, that’s become an analogy for the homophobia and xenophobia that is currently prevalent worldwide. The tension built here isn’t predicated on jump scares or undead zombies chasing after characters or even spirits haunting a mansion. The monsters in this film aren’t as cut and dried as in those examples, and that is perhaps what makes Freaks stand out from them. By the end of the film, you might find yourself wondering who the monsters really are.
About the Author:
Jason Inocencio was once the Digital Editor of adobo magazine who still loves seeing great campaigns from all over the world. He proudly shows off his love for all kinds of geeky things, whether it be movies, TV shows, comics, sports, or trivia.
