Freaked

Dir: Alex Winter, Tom Stern

1993

*****

Something terrible happened in the early 90s. Studios, who would quite happily let established directors piss money up the walls, suddenly lost their bottle. You have to look at the Coppola’s of the game, who over-ran on projects and made many a studio executive’s heart weak. They made a few masterpieces for sure, but their work ethic made studios nervous because it lost them money. It’s always about the money, which is understandable, but more and more studios couldn’t see beyond the money. Now I am surprised that 20th Century Fox went for the film quite as much as they did. Alex Winter and Tom Stern pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox and Joe Roth, the head of the studio at that time, loved the idea and offered the two a twelve million dollar deal to direct it, despite the fact that neither of them had any experience directing a major Hollywood film and had never even shot on 35mm film before. Freaked, originally called Hideous Mutant Freekz, was conceived around the time Winter and Stern had directed 1988's Bar-B-Que Movie, a short film starring and featuring the music of rock band Butthole Surfers. Winter, Stern and Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes began work on the first draft of the script, envisioning it as an obscene, ultra-violent horror film once again featuring the Butthole Surfers, costing around $100,000. The idea was, as Alex Winter put it, "Beach Blanket Bingo meets The Evil Dead". The two fished the script around to various studios for years, but to no avail. Following the end of production on Stern and Winter's MTV sketch comedy show The Idiot Box, staff writer Tim Burns was recruited to join the two in a number of rewrites. The film was completely revisioned, dropping the aspect of the Butthole Surfers entirely and turning it into a full comedy in the vein of the Monty Python and MAD Magazine-inspired humour that was present in The Idiot Box. Joe Roth loved it but signed them up on the condition that the film had to be rewritten and toned down to fit a PG-13 rating; therefore, most of the profanity was written out of the final draft to fit MPAA standards. Within a month of being picked up, the film began production. However, during filming, Joe Roth was fired as studio head by Rupert Murdoch and replaced with Peter Chernin, who didn't like the film nor the fact that twelve million dollars was being invested in it. It was perhaps a little premature of Roth to release a line of action figures, a novelization and, most notably, a comic book released by Hamilton Comics that was drawn before most of the casting was completed, so none of its characters looked anything like their real-life counterparts. Chernin cut the film's post-production budget, thus forcing a lot of the soundtrack (including a demo song that Iggy Pop had recorded for the closing credits) and special effects to be greatly cut down or eliminated altogether. The film's title was changed, as well, from the poorly received "Hideous Mutant Freekz" to the supposedly more accessible "Freaked", a title neither Winter nor Stern much cared for. After several poor test screenings, Fox chose to pull the film from a nationwide release and cut its advertising budget, leaving no money for commercials or newspaper ads. Despite initial positive critical response, the film opened in October 1993 on only two screens, making a mere $6,957 in its first weekend. It quickly dropped out of theatres, making less than $30,000 and becoming a box-office failure. It doesn’t take a genius to see that by trying to save money, the studio ended up loosing way more than they had to. The whole concept of test screening is utterly ridiculous. The film is amazing, a cult classic, although so few people have seen it it still isn’t the cult classic it deserves to be acknowledged as. It’s everything I love about the 90s. It begins with Skye Daley (Brooke Shields) as she is interviewing beloved former child star Ricky Coogin (Alex Winter). Rather bluntly, Skye asks how Ricky so quickly went from one of America's sweethearts to a name that makes children scream in terror. Ricky, completely in silhouette, begins his story. Ricky is shown accepting an endorsement contract from slimy mega-corporation E.E.S. (Everything Except Shoes) to promote "Zygrot 24", a toxic fertilizer, in South America. Although hesitant at first, the greedy, self-centered Coogin caves in after their sleazy CEO (William Sadler) offers him $5,000,000. Ricky travels immediately to the South American town of "Santa Flan" with his buddy Ernie (Michael Stoyanov). During their flight, the duo have a run-in with Ricky's 12-year old number one fan Stuey Gluck (Alex Zuckerman). Stuey begs Rick not to promote Zygrot 24 only to accidentally fall out of the plane. Once Ricky and Ernie arrive in Santa Flan, they cross paths with an angry group protesting Zygrot 24 and Ricky. In the group is environmentalist Julie (Megan Ward), who Ricky is instantly smitten with. The two con Julie into thinking they're also environmentalists (Ricky posing as a highly injured accident victim, his face covered in bandages) and she agrees to join them on a trip to another protest. However, she soon finds out their true identities and the three are stuck with each other for the rest of the drive. They decide to take a detour to see Freek Land, a local freak show only to wind up in the clutches of demented proprietor and mad scientist Elijah C. Skuggs (Randy Quaid) and his henchman, Toad (Jaime Cardriche). Utilizing his "Testy Freeks Machine", he merges Julie and Ernie into a single body and turns Ricky into a hideous green mutation. As Elijah has run out of Zygrot, only half of Ricky's body is mutated. Ricky meets the other freaks, including Ortiz the Dog Boy (an uncredited Keanu Reeves) Worm (Derek McGrath) a giant arthropod, Cowboy (John Hawkes) a literal anthropomorphic cow, the Bearded Lady (Mr. T in a dress) and Sockhead (Bobcat Goldthwait), who has a sock puppet for a head. Ricky has trouble adjusting to his new life as a freak, though he opens up when some of the other freaks recount how they were captured and disfigured by Elijah. During his first performance, Ricky foregoes his act (which inexplicably had him dressing like a caveman) and with some suggestions from Worm he performs a Shakespearean monologue which captivates the audience. Spotting his agent in the crowd, Ricky jumps off the stage hoping to be rescued, but flies into a murderous rage when the agent makes fun of him. Ricky tears his agent's head off and the crowd runs screaming into the night, with Elijah simply noting "that's what I call entertainment." The next day Ricky discovers to his horror that he is seeing a floating specter of Stuey. He angrily shoes Stuey's astral form away, but Cowboy states that only a pair of soulmates can have such a strong telepathic bond. After multiple failed attempts to sell the story to newspapers Stuey manages to sell Ricky's story to the Weekly World News, who will print anything, but ends up being captured by a group of shady businessmen that work for E.E.S. Ricky tries to escape by stealing the outfit of a milkman, only to be captured by Skuggs's gun-toting Rastafarian eyeball henchmen (literally giant eyeballs with Rastafarian accents and headwear) and brought before Elijah. Skuggs tells Ricky he plans to have him fully mutated into a blood-thirsty monster who will kill all the other freaks at the next show. On his way back to the freaks shed, he runs into the other freaks also making an escape attempt, and also dressed as milkmen. Ricky butts heads with Ortiz and the two fight until Ortiz is distracted by a squirrel and runs off, the Rasta eyeballs in pursuit. With Ortiz gone Ricky is named the new Freaks leader. Ricky and the freaks break into Skugg's lab to create a serum that will complete Ricky's mutation and have him kill Skuggs instead of the freaks. Ricky accidentally leaves the concoction in the lab, but finds a bag of tasty macaroons which the freaks enjoy. Ricky eventually finds out that Elijah's Zygrot suppliers are none other than E.E.S., who arrive at Freek Land with a shipment of Zygrot 24 and an imprisoned Stuey Gluck. As they discuss their plans to mutate the world's population into an race of E.E.S workers and consumers, Stuey follows a telepathic tip from Rick and manages to escape, grabbing the coffee can of mutation goo left behind by Ricky along the way. On the night of the show, Stuey appears with the batch of Zygrot only to have an annoyed biker dump it onto him, which turns him into a grotesque seven-foot monster. Stuey kills the biker and prepares to storm the stage and save Ricky. The Rasta eyeballs attempt to kill Stuey but he kicks dust into their eyes, blinding them. Toad tries to swallow Stuey only for Julie and Ernie to throw an M80 onto Toad's tongue which he swallows and promptly explodes. In response, Elijah infects Ricky with his own Zygrot, turning him into an equally grotesque seven-foot monster. As Ricky and Stuey battle to the death onstage, Elijah notices the E.E.S. executives trying to steal his equipment. Elijah stops them by soaking them with a Zygrot bazooka, mutating and merging them all into a giant, fleshy shoe. Right before Ricky is about to destroy Stuey, Cowboy reminds him that Stuey is his soulmate. A wave of compassion comes over him, and he gives Stuey a hug. Enraged, Elijah unsuccessfully tries to fight Ricky, who bashes him in the head, breaking his spine. Skuggs tries to get Ricky not to kill him by offering him the antidote for his mutation, telling him it was a time-delayed serum baked into a batch of macaroons. Ricky comments that he skimped on the sugar and punches Skuggs, sending him flying into the vat of Zygrot 24. An FBI task force arrives to save Ricky after having learned of Stuey's article. Skuggs suddenly reemerges from the Vat, having taken the form of Skye Daley. The FBI task force guns Skuggs/Skye down.Back at the interview, it's revealed that Ricky had turned back to normal (along with most of the other freaks, except for Worm, who hates Macaroons). They are then joined by Ortiz who has finally caught the squirrel and Stuey, still a giant super-freak. Skye comments on Elijah mutating to look like her, and Ricky realizes that Skye actually is Elijah. Skuggs lunges after Ricky with a machete, only to be gunned down by the now normal Julie. As she embraces Ricky, Skye rises again, this time to be gunned down by Ernie. Ricky and Julie kiss and everyone waves farewell to the audience until the film ends on a frozen shot of Skuggs once again rising up to attack Ricky. It was the ultimate film to me back in 1993. It had Bill & Ted, it had Brooke Shields, it had MR T!!! It is amazing John Hawkes had such a shining career after this. William Sadler, from Bill & Ted, was great and this was probably my favourite Randy Quaid performance of all time. I also think Bobcat Goldthwait’s Sockhead is the greatest character of all time and should have had his own film. Add to that the great music and the amazing special effects from the three best effects companies of the day: Tony Gardner's company Alterian, Inc., Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc., and Screaming Mad George's Studio and what you are left with is possibly the greatest example of early 90s counter-culture. This would have been a classic had it been given a proper release. The irony is that it would be a better known film had it been as bad as the studio thought it was. Films like Troll 2 are now official cult classics because they’re known as ‘best worst’ but Freaked doesn’t fall into that category. Freaked is the best, it’s just that not enough people know it.