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The whole idea of recruiting indie directors to make a blockbuster superhero or fantasy film, at least from a creative point of view, is that they’ll put some kind of human touch on the big studio machinery while gaining the clout to continue making more personal projects. The former is a crapshoot that most filmmakers lose, perhaps unsurprisingly; the more depressing fact is how infrequently the latter seems to pay off. Let’s take a quick count: How many smaller-scale or original movies have we seen in total from Chloé Zhao, Peyton Reed, Destin Daniel Cretton, Cate Shortland, or Ryan Coogler since their respective absorptions into the MCU? (The answer is almost one; Coogler has a movie out this month.) But while it may have taken a full six years since the billion-dollar success of Captain Marvel, filmmaking duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have managed to do it: They’ve returned with Freaky Tales, a genuinely offbeat movie that’s almost bizarrely personal, even when it attempts to please some invisible, appreciative festival crowd.
It might seem reductive to even talk about a movie like Freaky Tales in relation to comic-book pictures, yet the movie itself doesn’t quite scare off the comparison, either. Despite early descriptions and an accompanying title that somewhat inaccurately indicate an anthology-like feature, Freaky Tales plays more like a graphic novel as it overlaps a series of stories set in 1987 Oakland. In the first section, punk-scene teenagers Tina (Ji-young Yoo) and Lucid (Jack Champion) shyly flirt as they prepare to defend a DIY club from encroaching skinheads. In another, besties Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne) get an unexpected shot at rap-battling the Bay Area fixture Too Short. The real Too Short appears in a bit part, as do members of Operation Ivy, who are portrayed by actors during the punk story. Two more chapters entwine criminal enforcer Clint (Pedro Pascal) and a basketball game where Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis, though the real Floyd also turns up) really did set a points record playing for the Golden State Warriors.
To some degree or another, all of the Freaky Tales are about underdogs who wind up blessed, in some way or another, by a mysterious green glow that may have something to do a much-advertised self-help course called Psytopics. (Related: Was “mindfulness” really a big buzzword in 1987?) The first two skew toward youthful wish-fulfillment, while the second two are more violent, Tarantino-style misadventures. (Not that the skinhead skirmish lacks violence of its own.) The whole project, in fact, feels just as indebted to Quentin Tarantino as the much-referenced cultural artifacts of the era—but not in the hacky pattern of so many bad late-’90s festival hopefuls. Freaky Tales recalls the playfulness of Tarantino, forming a kinship with the movie-drunk goofball who blueprinted Grindhouse moreso than the brash young challenger of Pulp Fiction, even if they borrow that classic’s sectioned-off structure.
Boden and Fleck aren’t as gifted at spinning their influences into junk-culture transcendence. They do, however, have a keen eye for digression, even going so far as to stage one of their best scenes as that old ’90s-indie standby, the video store conversation. This one features a cameo from a beloved film icon, acting opposite an effectively no-nonsense Pascal. Previously, these filmmakers have seemed like thoughtful indie genre-shifters; the most anthology-like aspect of Freaky Tales is how, consciously or not, it collects disparate aspects of their filmography together in one package: There’s a sports story (like Sugar), a young-adult romance (like It’s Kind Of A Funny Story), and some seedy gambling (like their great, underseen Mississippi Grind), with past stars like Ben Mendelsohn and Keir Gilchrist reappearing. (Anthony Mackie from Half Nelson would have been a nice addition.) There’s even some third-act pulpy action that’s more fun than most of the similar scenes in Captain Marvel.
Is there a point to all this? Surely Freaky Tales will elicit that reaction from some, and fair enough that its stories aren’t exactly stretched taut with dramatic tension. (That aspect of later-period Tarantino largely eludes them.) But the movie does gather some emotional power from wish-fulfillment that feels all the more wistful in the year-plus since the movie’s Sundance debut: Namely, the frequency with which its heroes run up against various white supremacists (whether Nazi skinheads, racist cops, or criminals sporting the Confederate flag) and manage to fight back. In this context, the pop-historical and geographical references aren’t smarmy signaling; they’re joyfully communal, part of a keep-Oakland-weird fantasia. That the movie is “only” a silly romp makes it all the more charming to watch Boden and Fleck find a less mechanical, less programmatic way to have fun.
Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Writers: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jay Ellis, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo
Release Date: April 4, 2025
