‘Frankie Freako’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Is Pretty Good Pizza
Writer/director Steven Kostanski is doubling down on more of the humor that made Psycho Goreman an outlier for horror comedies within the past few years. This time around it comes in a pint-sized form (give or take a few ounces). Frankie Freako is, largely, a puppet-centric original creature feature that lifts from various Gremlins -adjacent cinematic riffs like a spoiled grade-schooler would when trick-or-treating, regardless of a babysitter’s presence. You could say that Frankie Freako meets expectations and not much more, which would be true. Kostanski draws from a treasure trove of puppet horror films for inspiration and depending on your knowledge of the sub-genre of ankle-biting creature flicks, it’s either gonna click for you or it isn’t. Simple as that. Goreman’s situational humdrum tongue-in-cheek dad humor is beefed up to the max in Freako . Unlikely hero Conor finds himself in an existential bind when he realizes tha...