Frankie Freako

 Eighties (and early nineties) nostalgia doesn't get much more specific than Frankie Freako, writer/director/editor Steve Kostanski's love letter to cheapie Gremlins knock-offs, kid-friendly comedy/horror/sci-fi like The Gate or Suburban Commando, and all things Charles Band. It coasts on enough weirdness and an odd likeability that it gets to be the rare bad-on-purpose movie that manages to be worthwhile. Just about.

 Conor (Conor Sweney) is the caricature of a drip, a ridiculously square office worker and a fuddy goodie-two-shoes whose idea of being adventurous consists of getting two different types of cheese on his pizza, and who's brought to orgasm within seconds by just holding hands with his loving but understandably frustrated wife (Kristy Wordsworth). When a series of events at the office with his boss at the office (Adam Brooks) bring to his attention that maybe he is a bit... boring, he gets a bit of an identity crisis.

 Bristling at the temerity of such a baseless accusation, Conor calls a party hotline hosted by Frankie Freako, a diminutive, ugly red dude voiced by Matthew Kennedy, and soon three lovingly realized but slightly stiff puppets are running amok in his house, thrashing the place in the course of their partying.
 Part of the film is Conor pitting his wits against the tiny invaders (he's hopelessly outmatched) plus a side of comically inane corporate intrigue, and then the back half expands the scope to explain a little about the Freakos and enlist Conor in a really mild interstellar adventure.

Here's an early attempt of me trying to find out how to watch this. PSA: Winners don't use AI!

 The music's pretty good! A couple of dead ringers for the sort of obnoxious party rock that dominated teen horror at the time, plus some excellent synth-driven tracks from Blitz/Berlin that are similar to, say, College in that they sound more like we think the eighties sounded than they actually did.
 The puppets' design is very solid (one of them is a pretty direct homage to Puppet Master), but they really don't animate that well. By design, of course, but if you're expecting the sort of low-budget practical effects wizardry Kostanski is known for you'll have to wait until things go haywire at about the halfway point. It's totally worth sticking around, in case you're wondering.

 The acting is also bad on purpose, with some truly odd choices from the cast (I'm still not sure what Wordsworth's accent is supposed to be - sounds like a mix between Australian and a made-up Eastern European country?). I wouldn't be surprised to find out there was a lot of improvisation on-set; At least everyone looks like they're having fun, which makes sense as many of the actors and crew go way back to at least Father's Day.

 The oddest misfire is the script, which packs in plenty of jokes but often forgets to make them funny, possibly in a sly wink to such comedic masterpieces as Munchies or Hobgoblins. Maybe it's on purpose? Arch, good-natured postmodernism, played straight. Maybe. I'm not sure! But I kind of love that uncertainty.

 It's all abetted by an obvious affection for the material it's spoofing, and leavened with the same type of transgressive humour that made Kostanski's Psycho Goreman so essential (but dialed all the way back to one or two). Only mildly amusing and kind of half-arsed, but weird and agreeable enough that it never outstays its welcome, Frankie Freako seems destined to be another bit of Canadian low-budget weirdness for stoners to obsess over as they stumble upon it in the dankest reaches of the streaming lists over the coming years.