Today is a big day on the site. (Breathing into a bag.) I started noticing something meh in my Google Analytics reports – and I think THiNC. needs to change the content layout some in order to make you guys happier, which, in turn (I hope) will result in better SEO love…which then in turn results in more friends to talk movies with. So – I am proposing to drop the movie walkthrough entirely. Instead I’ll jump straight to the explanation/discussion section of the post. If you guys aren’t digging it – please let me know in the comments. But right now? I’m about to Explain Why the Movie Freaks is Freaking Awesome.
So yeah – I highly recommend this movie. So much so, I’m not going to tell you anything about it. Even better, I’m going to recommend you don’t watch this trailer below if you haven’t seen it. Just go find a copy and watch it.
Spoilers Abound From Here On Out
I’m serious about ditching the movie walkthrough. We are just going to dive into the movie itself and start slinging spoilers at a prodigious rate, and if you aren’t careful, you might ruin this fantastic movie for yourself…
As the movie starts, we, the viewer, have no idea what is going on. Dad seems sketch. The Icecream Man seems like a letch. And the daughter may just be demon possessed. It’s one of the really great aspects to this movie that we really struggle to understand what is going on from the start. But after Chloe (played by Lexy Kolker) takes an extended leave with her Grandfather – Mr. Icecream – her father (played by Emile Hirsch, who was awesome in The Autopsy of Jane Doe, as well as in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood) explains that he has placed her in a time bubble in order to protect her from the authorities.
Freaks Movie Time Bubble
“Wait! Explain that bit some more please! A Time Bubble?” Yeah, he basically has squatted in a dilapidated house, and has forced time to freeze in the world. And all the while Chloe continues to grow. But the bubble isn’t perfect, because Dad is only able to maintain the bubble while he sleeps. (Movie logic flaw #1 – if you do a little math on this, you realize that Dad is averaging 17 minutes of sleep each night. Think about it. The neighbor states that it’s only been a month since he asked them to take care of Chloe. And while it was a month for them, it was seven years for him and Chloe. 25000 days in seven years. 720 hours in a month. Voila, 17 minutes a night. But I’m picking at this point.) But the fraying of the time bubble also explains why Chloe is able to see things going on around her. The slumber party of the girls next door. Her mother as she is being tortured and experimented. Which brings up another point that might be a little confusing…
Abnormals/Freaks Are a Hunted Class
The movie Freaks does not tell us how Abnormals are first created. We just have to take it as a fact. At first the Abnormals are not a threat, but when a few “accidents” happened three years before Chloe was born (like the complete annihilation of Dallas) they all become a hunted class. And, as an attempt to bring them all in, an offer of amnesty is given to all Abnormals. In taking the deal though, they would have to move to the Mountain where they would be quarantined. (Read murdered/neutralized.)
Which is what happened to Chloe’s mother (played by Amanda Crew) Mary. She and her father were rounded up, and her father was able to get away, but Mary wasn’t. The Icecream Man then continues visiting Chloe, but didn’t tell Chloe’s father that Mary was still alive. So when Chloe starts to see visions of her mother, it blows her father’s mind, solely because he is under the firm assumption that Mary is dead.
The Ending of Freaks Explained
OK. So you get the idea that Chloe is an Abnormal. An extra-special-Abnormal. You get the idea that she got her powers from her father (who could stop time) and from her mother (who could fly). And we know that she can see across distances, and interact with others through this teleportal type vision. You also get the idea that her father is hiding his daughter, afraid for his life, because (he believes anyway) that his wife had been killed by the government when she and Chloe’s grandfather were rounded up. You get all that. Right? Perfect.
As the movie heads down the homestretch, Chloe realizes that not only is her mother alive, but her time is soon to be short for this world. The men that have her locked up are about to kill her. We don’t know how, or why. Things get complicated when Chloe’s father tries to pass Chloe off to their neighbors to protect her. He was going to give them piles of cash each month (which he almost certainly got through stock market and lottery manipulations. I mean, he is from the future after all), in return for their keeping her safe. But when Chloe manipulates the mother to get her to say that she loves Chloe it totally (and understandably) wigs her out. They call the police, and Agent Ray comes in. At first she is seen as a sympathetic character – we learn she’s hellbent on the rounding up of all freaks. But Chloe, after her father and grandfather are both shot, manages to get Agent Ray to “kill herself.” And from there, Chloe is able to help her mother get outdoors, by controlling a security guard at the facility, which allows her mother to fly away. The hellfire kills her father, who dies protecting his daughter. And Mary and Chloe decide they are going to leave, and live a normal life without fear of anyone judging them for being different.
Final Thoughts on Freaks
This movie was delicious. Beginning to end. It started with confusion. And then it increased the confusion to an eleven. Then things started resolving, and the picture became more and more clear. Going into the film, I didn’t even realize it was a superhero movie. I had no idea what I was walking into. But afterwards I was so impressed with what we’d been given. Not because the special effects were any good (they were on par with Flash Gordon maybe?) but because the writing and the intrigue was so interesting. Was it a perfect movie? NO! This thing is basically a pitch movie for a movie! hahaha. But I loved everything about it. If you are going to give humans superpowers, then make them desperate. Make the hole that they are in all that much deeper.
Here we have a story about a father protecting his daughter. Better yet, the situation must be really grim because they have hunkered down and are doing drills and learning their new identities inside and out. The chips are down. The entirety of society is against them. And they have nowhere to go but to hide inside time. It’s a great idea. Wonderful little film. And they did so much with so very little. (I would really like to know how much they spent on making this film. Can’t be much. And YET, it all worked.) But those are my thoughts…did the powers mechanics work? Did the movie work? What did you think of it?
Edited by: CY