Starring the other half of Bill & Ted Alex Winter alongside William Sadler, Brooke Shields, Randy Quaid, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Mr T & a cameo appearance by Morgan Fairchild this bizarre horror comedy is better than it should have been.What I mean by that is it's stupid really really stupid.It tells the story of an actor who sells out and becomes the spokesperson for an evil chemical company. Somewhere along the way he and his friends fall foul of a twisted freakshow owner who doesn't find his freaks, he makes them!Full of slapstick humour this will appeal to people who like the old Airplane (1980) movies. If you don't like a joke then fear not because another will be along in a matter of seconds.The humour is purile but it works very well as one of those take your brain out pieces of entertainment.With "Freaks" like the dog boy, beast boy, the worm, the nose, sock man, and the crazy frogman (Which is a guy in a diving suit) *Badamstish* the creature effects are excellent and deserved the awards they won.If you're seeking something harmless but stupid this right here is for you.The Good:Creature effectsSome jokes really hit the markThe Bad:Painfully dumb in placesThings I Learnt From This Movie:Being half cocked isn't what it's cracked up to beI can't look at Randy Quaid anymore without seeing him humping his wife while she's wearing a Rupert Murdoch maskBobcat Goldthwaite makes everything better

whoa. vile and creepy. but awesomely funny nonsense. and boy did this have fantastic make up and gore effects. but most of all i couldn't stop laughing and i couldn't take my eyes off of it's vile maliciousness. it was fascinating and strangely absorbing.i don't even want to describe the plot. i don't want to to remind myself of it and blow my brains up. but that doesn't mean it was a bad movie, just a really freaky one. a lot of this was even a little scary. if not frightening. but it carries on with such gleeful and humorous insanity, that it ends up being more funny than disturbing.although i suppose good caution should make a viewer wary of all this. there was a lot of spite and malice here and a almost fatalistic pessimism. but it's so darned funny you're almost unaware of it.i hadn't seen this movie in a very long time. not since it first came out. i remember liking it but it didn't make much of a impression on me and i remembered almost nothing about it. having seen it again recently for the first time since it's release (or shall we say escape?) on to video, i'm surprised i didn't remember this wicked lunacy better. i mean this is grotesque stuff but man is it vivid and memorable.i'd have to say this was a very well made movie even if it was freaky and creepy. it's comedy was effective and the make up and robotics were out of this world. as to what is this movie's purpose or pointed message? i have no idea but it must be a doozy. i just don't want to think about it.

Freaked is the kind of movie that Lloyd Kaufman's company Troma wants to make, all the time, 24/7. And they often do, but with a lack of talent and a dearth of funds, so that the cheesy script that has some real edge to it on occasion suffers from everything else around it being so Z-grade (sometimes this benefits it like Class of Nuke Em High, and other times not at all). But directors Alex Winter (who played Bill in Bill & Ted) and Tom Stern have money, at least enough to pull off some solid special effects make-up, and some genuine comic talent, at least the kind that could go for this kind of thing. And yes, I include Brooke Shields, Deep Roy, Bobcat Goldthwait and Mr. T in this discussion. Also, Alex Winter. And Randy Quaid is there too. For the sake of a film like Freaked, set in Santa Flan and about a crazy hick who creates his own carnival of freaks from a corporate-created toxin, it's just what's necessary (Keanu Reeves is here too, but uncredited).The jokes fly at a clip that is about as insane as imaginable. It has the pacing that is even more reminiscent of a Looney Tunes cartoon, or something really crazy like an underground comic or Ren & Stimpy at their most manic-brilliant. A joke goes so fast and thick, either visual (Rastafarian Eyeballs, I rest my case), or verbal, like the dialog from the corporate toxin-mongers, "Twelve milkmen IS theoretically possible. Thirteen is silly. Looks like there's one milkman too many, Coogan!" That the designs on everybody, Winter, Mr. T, Goldthwait, Reeves (yes, the Dog-Boy he is) is really convincing is one thing, since it's work done for a really outrageous cause. Even little things like the Alfred E. Newman kid comes off convincingly. Did I mention all of the jokes going so much? It is a comedy where overkill is more than a possibility, it is a necessity after a while. From practically the start it's set up like a Pee Wee's Playhouse episode dipped in kerosene and let loose inside of a madhouse (yes, even more than the Playhouse). But the filmmakers bypass going *too* far (if that's possible) by sticking to their metaphorical guns. If you're making a movie about a bunch of freaks where Randy Quaid is the master in charge, why not go for the most crazy things imaginable and crudely so (for example, the seemingly wisest character of the freaks, an eloquent British-voiced earthworm, keeps asking for help to wipe his own ass). This isn't Tod Browning's film, which actually tried for some real heart and depth to looking at actual freaks. It's a gaudy cartoon spectacle, and it's filmed like it and acted like it and for every one joke or gag or pun that falls flat, twenty others hit their targets directly. It even trumps another 1993 comedy, Mel Brooks' Robin Hood, for being so zany that for the right viewer (like myself) you have to catch your breath. If you're in the mood for it, you'll get attached to it pretty quickly. It's got such an array of imagination and absurdism, from gags involving postal worker uniforms to a transformation *into) Brooke Shields as a mutant equivalent, that it either works for you or it doesn't. It did for me, and it's more than likely to hit a nerve with film geeks looking for that kind of obscure mid 90's cult gem.

Technically, this is a comedy. But it's about a freak show containing a whole lot of demented freaks and mutants. Add to that some outrageous special make-up effects by Screaming Mad George, some occasional over-the-top bloodshed and a typical final freeze-frame shock-end shot (think a lot of 80's horror/slashers) and in my opinion this is the ultimate comedy for horror-fans. But you have to dig the sort of humor FREAKED handles, or otherwise you're screwed. I'm not using the word 'splatter' here and I do mean 'comedy', because this flick is more parody-orientated than, for example, Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD (which focuses more on splatter and gore). When I mention that this movie is co-directed, co-written by and also starring the talented Alex Winter (of BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and BOGUS JOURNEY-fame) than you kind of know what to expect, right? Well, it's only ten times crazier! A lot of remarkable demented cameos from some famous people of whom you would not expect it. Just see this flick. It's one of my favorite horror-comedies ever!