Freaky Tales

A common lament of the IP era is its tendency to subsume promising independent filmmakers, spending years of their prime on huge productions that swallow up their unique and exciting voice, then unceremoniously move on. The lucky ones are able to at least produce successful movies, which should give them the clout to get their passion projects made, but more often just allows them some choice in which unimaginative blockbuster to attach themselves to. They don't frequently reemerge, and even if they do, can't seem to find their way back to what drew us to them in the first place. It's hard to blame filmmakers for taking a payday, especially given how hard it can be to pull together funding for an independent film. But it's equally hard not to think about what's been lost. Would Peter Jackson have continued to make grimy and upsetting horror-comedies? How would Chloé Zhao have chosen to follow up her Best Picture-winning Nomadland? Would Colin Trevorrow have felt less desperate to prove his indie bonafides, and thus never destroyed his career with the disastrous Book of Henry?

This question is especially relevant when the director(s) make one of the most financially successful movies ever. Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden are the team behind 2019's Captain Marvel. The world was their oyster. After a brief detour into TV as the pandemic broke, they turned themselves into the exception, wielding their influence to gift us with an insane and stylish genre picture, an anthology celebrating the Oakland of Fleck's childhood through a series of fantastical stories set in 1987.

I cannot overstate how quickly the movie punches you in the face with its punk aesthetic. We open on a short commercial starring Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) imploring people to join him at an event sponsored by the Psytopics Spiritual Learning Center. The image is worn as being played from an old VHS, and sure enough, the camera pulls out to reveal we're watching TV. At which point, we cut to an opening crawl over an image of Oakland, read by an unknown narrator who then adds his own editorializing after it ends, and will pop up a few more times to introduce each segment or provide commentary. Speaking of that, we then dive to a title card for chapter 1, "Strength in Numbers", which is then the alternate title of "The Gilman Strikes Back", before "The" is scratched out. At which point we're dropped into the first story. The flurry of activity settles down at this point, but the energy and DIY vibe stick around for most of the next one-hundred minutes.

As you would expect with such a setup, the tales are linked by time and place. Conspicuous lingering shots and recognizable actors signpost the moments which will show up later, and so deserve special attention. Sure enough, a bunch of characters and small moments and background details of the earlier chapters play an important role in the fourth and final chapter, "The Legend of Sleepy Floyd".

Before we get there, we have three stand-alone chapters, setting up these linkages but otherwise unaffected by them. In "The Gilman Strikes Back", we follow Lucid and Tina (Jack Champion and Ji-young Yoo) as they and their fellow punks fight back against the Nazi skinheads who've been showing up at their venue to beat the snot out of them. "Don’t Fight the Feeling" sees Danger Zone's Barbie and Entice (Dominique Thorne and Normani) invited to a rap-battle against the far more famous Too $hort (DeMario Symba Driver). "Born to Mack" sees the proper introduction of retiring enforcer Clint (Pedro Pascal) after he briefly walked through an earlier shot. There are a handful of delightful cameos in these segments, most lasting just a few short seconds, save for one in a video store that had my audience buzzing with glee.

Each story builds the momentum. It's a quickening cavalcade of delightfully off-beat humor, the refutation of those who would look down upon and step over you, and a violent revolt to a world that's underestimated you to justify your subjugation. Each features mysterious and otherworldly green electricity, which descends at some key moment to give the protagonists an extra boost. The narrative doesn't have an explanation for what it is, it's just treated as something special which was in the air. But thematically, it reads as a visualization of the power granted to those whose actions are righteous, who recognize the importance of justice, who assert their right to exist in the face of those who wish them ill. In short, it's a reminder that we need not be powerless in the face of creeping fascism.

All of which comes to a head in the aforementioned "The Legend of Sleepy Floyd", a home invasion-turned-revenge tale paying homage to Bruce Lee, as teased earlier. It's by far the longest segment, as it has a lot of ground to cover. Overall, it's magnificent and incredibly satisfying, and is probably the closest I've come to cheering at wanton violence in quite some time. It falters a bit as it feels obligated to prove that its narrative weaving works through clunky flashbacks, sapping some of the momentum. However, Ellis is able to get us back on track quickly enough to avoid disaster.

The entire experience is shot through with creativity. There are some absolutely rapturous kills, made even more cathartic by who's on the receiving end. "Gilman" features one of the coolest gore effects I've ever seen, which was achieved crudely yet retains its effectiveness despite (because of?) that. Granted, there are a handful of other metanarrative elements whose purpose is unclear, so you'll be searching the frame and your brain for their meaning to no avail, which isn't ideal. They mostly fall off after "Gilman", but are a bit of an awkward start.

If there's a fundamental issue with the movie, it's the script. Writing for a hyperreal fever dream which is still based in our reality is difficult. That baseline means you've got to keep the story and dialog and characters sufficiently grounded, while still pushing the tone about ten percent harder than the audience expects to keep us wonderfully off-guard. So it's unsurprising that some of the less established actors occasionally miss the tone, or that some of the dialog is too on the nose, or that a few of the plot threads seemingly sputter out.

But that so much of it works is a miracle. This is a style of movie which rarely sees theatrical distribution, if it gets made at all. It's a mixtape of a movie (Clint even receives a cassette of the movie's needle drops), the type of low-budget high-effort endeavor which would be destined to life as a video store classic in an earlier era. It's the type of thing you throw in after turning to your friends and saying "Check this out." And when it's over, you all agree it was way better than it had any right to be, and can you believe who they got to pop in for a scene?

So do you need to see this before it leaves theaters? No, it will play just as well on your TV. It's practically formatted with that in mind. But if you want to send the message that these types of movies are worthy of both the crew's time and the studio's money, I recommend making the trip. You won't regret it.