As a gamer with a lifelong love for all things sci-fi and horror, I can confidently say that if our world ever found itself inhabited by vampires, zombies, and werewolves, I’d rather not use “Freaks of Nature” as a guide on how to coexist peacefully. This 2015 comedy is more about slapstick silliness than deep exploration or existential pondering. It’s like someone took every horror trope and crammed it into a small town where humans, vampires, and zombies all live together harmoniously… until an alien invasion throws everything into chaos.
Should humanity one day find itself sharing the world with creatures from our darkest sci-fi nightmares, such as vampires, zombies, and werewolves, following the example set in Freaks of Nature (available to stream on Peacock) for building a harmonious coexistence would undoubtedly lead to calamity.
In a self-evidently comedic style reminiscent of classic slapstick films, the 2015 horror-comedy “Freaks of Nature” playfully reimagines the traditional creature-feature theme. It places its usual small-town horror events within a society that has only just managed to find a way to coexist with its supernatural elements, fairy tale derivatives included. In this film, vampires, zombies, and regular folks live harmoniously, as long as nothing disruptive arises that could upset the fragile balance of their unique social structure.
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Freaks of Nature: Turning supernatural scares into slapstick screwball comedy
Just as a typical horror movie, “Freaks of Nature” centers around the lives of teenagers in a small town, making it fortunate that everyone initially shares a tranquil existence. In the quaint town of Dillford, Ohio, vampires and zombies coexist harmoniously with their human counterparts. They hold jobs, attend school, and in some cases, even teach, effortlessly blending into the human population they share a familial bond with.
Originally, how did vampires and zombies come into being? Well, that’s more suitable for a different genre of films. “Freaks of Nature” employs its sci-fi backdrop to create an amusing narrative rather than serving as a platform for philosophical questions about existence. The story isn’t central here; it’s primarily a collection of gory, humorous visual jokes scattered among the movie’s teenage characters’ quieter maturation scenes.
In this story, we follow Dag (Nicholas Braun from “Succession”), who appears to be an average high school student but harbors feelings of guilt for his past actions towards his childhood friend, Ned (Josh Fadem), a brainy kid. Initially, another character enters the scene: Petra (Mackenzie Davis from “Bladerunner 2049”), a timid girl who manages to navigate the harsh social hierarchy in her high school.
In the film “Freaks of Nature,” character development is fairly shallow compared to other movies, but it works effectively instead of being a flaw. Apart from a hilarious scene where Bob Odenkirk (known for “Better Call Saul”) and Joan Cusack (recognized from “Shameless”) portray Dag’s overly relaxed parents, the characters in this movie are more like flat cartoon figures – which becomes beneficial when the film needs them to respond to the exaggerated demands of its main antagonist.
That threat turns out to be an alien invasion, one that comes with a properly absurd motivation (they’re after the secret ingredient in the local food plant’s mystery meat!) while shattering the surprisingly fragile peace that humans, vampires, and zombies thought they’d created for themselves. Instead of uniting against the shared alien menace, all the town’s species immediately revert to their instinctively violent form and turn on each other — right from the very first moment they see those creepy lights in the sky.
Amidst a chaotic street battle that resembles a comical prehistoric war, it falls upon Dag, Ned, and Petra to devise a clear strategy to combat the aliens. This task becomes even more challenging when Ned and Petra choose to relinquish their human traits on the eve of the major invasion (Ned transforms into a zombie, while Petra takes on a vampire form). However, this twist propels the movie’s entertainingly simplistic plotline: A vampire, a zombie, and a man (or is he?), banding together to outsmart an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence.
The way they execute it is better experienced within the film itself, as the slapstick sequences offer an amusing and improbable appearance of various talented actors from Freaks of Nature. Keegan-Michael Key portrays a teacher with severe anger problems; Patton Oswalt has a brief, humorous stint as a paranoid doomsday preacher; Vanessa Hudgens captivates in the role of a tragic teenage vampire, and Dennis Leary excels in his part as the film’s primary antagonist, a sarcastic, small-time businessman with an excessive amount of arrogance.
Additionally, another notable guest makes an appearance: a voice reminiscent of someone familiar yet lacking a physical form. This voice might prompt you to search online (a clue: it’s been heard in The Mandalorian) when the extraterrestrials eventually establish communication, just to confirm if that’s truly who you believe is speaking once contact is established.
If you’re open to a bit of subtle cleverness along with your typical over-the-top Halloween comedy, then “Freaks of Nature” is certainly one of the funnier popcorn movies this season that’s worth checking out.
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2024-10-22 23:16