Review: Freaky Tales

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have always been the kind of filmmakers who could get under your skin—sometimes through quiet emotional honesty (Half Nelson), sometimes with dice-rolling swagger (Mississippi Grind), and, more recently, via Marvelized mega-spectacle (Captain Marvel). But with Freaky Tales, the duo crack open their cinematic jukebox and let the needle skip all over the damn place. Set in 1987 Oakland and playing like the punk zine lovechild of Pulp Fiction, The Warriors, and Scanners, this bonkers genre mixtape is a blood-spattered, beat-thumping tribute to the city that raised Fleck—and a reminder that sometimes the weirdos really do run the world.

Told across four overlapping segments, Freaky Tales is less a traditional anthology and more a neighborhood house party with every room tuned to a different frequency. One room is blasting hardcore punk while fists fly between Gilman Street punks and a horde of Nazi skinheads (because of course). Another is hosting a rap battle where Dominique Thorne and Normani—magnetic as hell as BFFs Barbie and Entice—try to snatch the mic from Too Short himself. Then there’s Pedro Pascal’s segment, a brooding tale of one last debt collection before domestic bliss—if, that is, he can get through his increasingly surreal day job without losing fingers or his soul. And finally, a high-flying ode to Sleepy Floyd (played with unexpected gravitas by Jay Ellis), which starts in NBA arenas and ends in sword-swinging, glow-powered, genre-shattering vengeance.

It’s... a lot. But it’s also kind of glorious.

Boden and Fleck aren’t content to just toss these stories on a timeline and hope for the best. Instead, they weave them together with a mysterious green glow that flickers through scenes like some otherworldly pulse—whether it’s alien, cult-driven (hello, Psytopics!), or simply the spiritual lifeblood of The Town itself is never clear. But the point isn’t the logic; it’s the vibe. Like an urban legend told after too many forties, Freaky Tales is soaked in exaggeration, distortion, and the kind of cinematic mythmaking that trades facts for fireworks.

Speaking of fireworks: Normani and Thorne walk away with the whole movie, their chemistry is clear. Their story has the emotional core that the punk segment lacks—though to be fair, said punk segment does feature Nazi beatdowns and Jack Champion doing his best “lovelorn anarchist” impression. Pascal also shines, walking the tightrope between tenderness and terror like only he can. A late cameo in his segment delivers a meta-cinematic gut punch so perfect it practically demands applause. You’ll know it when it hits.

Stylistically, Freaky Tales swings for the fences with every tool in the shed: needle drops that wink as hard as they slap, 2-D animated sequences, slasher tropes, and enough gooey gore to make David Cronenberg blush. Some transitions are janky, and not every thread ties up neatly—but when the aesthetic is “riotous VHS fever dream,” narrative tightness is optional.

This isn’t a film for everyone. It’s messy. It’s loud. It wears its cult credentials like a patched denim vest. But if you grew up on mixtapes, midnight movies, and Oakland legends, Freaky Tales might just feel like home. Or at least, the kind of dream you don’t want to wake up from.

3/5