Editorials
Through the Cracks: ‘Freak’ is a Hidden Slasher Gem
As hardcore horror fans, sometimes it feels like you’ve seen it all. There are no surprises left to discover, no classic slasher film waiting around the corner to thrill you and slap a childlike grin on your face. You try to feed the fix by searching through lists of “The Scariest Films You’ve Never Seen” only to come across titles like “May”, “The Descent”, and “Suspiria”. These are, of course, films that us diehards know and love all too well. That’s where I come in, dear reader. We’ll be taking a deep dive into the bowels of obscure horror from decades past and uncovering titles that might have fallen “Through the Cracks”.
Freak (1999)
Directed By: Tyler Tharpe
Around ten years ago, for a few bucks, I picked up an incredibly cheesy looking DVD from Shock-o-rama Video, entitled Freak. It sat on my shelf collecting dust for quite some time. When I eventually got around to watching it, I feared I’d picked up a stinker. This is an incredibly low budget affair. Thankfully, I recall my concerns were unfounded, and I was ultimately pleased with what I’d seen. The details remained foggy, however. I rediscovered the disc amongst my collection the other night as I was doing some organizing and figured why not toss it in the player? I ended up pretty much shook for the rest of the evening.
My main goal with these “Through the Cracks” articles (and upcoming podcast) is to truly shine a light on overlooked flicks that deserve a bit more attention. Freak certainly fits the bill. A cursory Google search returns very little in the way of info aside from a Rotten Tomatoes page with zilch in the way of critical opinion and an IMDB listing with only a handful of user reviews. The film has yet to make the leap to Blu-ray. As far as I can tell, this DVD, with its full frame, grain filled presentation is about as good as it gets. For those interested in checking it out, copies can still be found on Amazon. FYI, this is a case of what’s on the cover having pretty much nothing to do with the film itself.
Director Tyler Tharpe, whose only other feature credit appears to be a film called Return in Red (which I’ll be tracking down next), spearheads this regional Indiana production. While this certainly feels like a DIY ordeal, the pastoral autumn setting really lends to the overall feel of the movie. By the way, Freak is a 100% rff/ripoff/homage of John Carpenter’s Halloween. The film makes no excuses for the fact, however. It gladly wears the inspiration on its sleeve and marches forward with one goal in mind: reeling the viewer to the edge of their seat. In that, the film succeeds exceptionally well.
Quick caveat: this is not a flick for gore-hounds or those seeking a body count hack-n-slash. Tharpe is much more concerned in constructing a tense atmosphere that slowly builds to an all-out final girl battle with our titular psycho. The story opens to a ramshackle home in the boonies where a reclusive, hateful woman keeps her nine-year-old son chained in the attic and insists he cover his monstrous face with a patchwork mask. Though, a quick blink and you’ll miss it shot reveals his deformities are likely just a figment of her delusional imagination. Seriously, you guys, she’s a terrible mom.
In fact, after giving birth all by herself in bed to a second child, she doesn’t hesitate to drop the newborn into a trash fire where she quickly heads back inside for a much-deserved nap. This pretty much signals the last straw for her prisoner/offspring who sets about swiftly righting her wrongs. In these opening moments, the mood is perfectly set for the quietly chilling tale that follows. Flash forward several years and the child is now grown (“The Keller Boy,” uncredited but apparently played by the director himself) and about to be transported to a neighboring mental institution. Naturally, he escapes mid-transit (told you it owes a lot to Halloween).
The rest of the story centers on two sisters who are moving across the country, leaving behind their family home and too many painful memories. As you might expect, their paths ultimately cross with the escaped lunatic. That’s really all there is in terms of plot. That said, there’s the insane but in the realm of possibility likelihood that our heroine’s little sis is the long lost trash-fire sibling of the Keller boy, but that is never touched on. The fact that she was adopted at the same time as our Freak was institutionalized is probably just a thematic element to link them. Although, if there were ever a Freak 2 they could pull a “Laurie Strode/Cynthia Myers” and claim the groundwork was there all along.
Freak is barebones, shot on presumably a threadbare shoestring, and features acting that is…not the greatest. Despite all of that, it really does work at sending a chill down your spine. Taking a page (or two or three) from Carpenter, Tharpe shoots his villain in brief glimpses. His guise, a series of white bandages wrapped around his “deformed” face, cuts a creepy silhouette whether in shadow or the more adrenaline fueled final moments. A distinctive and bold choice is the score. It’s minimalist, even occasionally nonexistent, with several of the more suspenseful moments playing out with nothing on the soundtrack but wind rustling through the leaves. The editing is also top notch, whipping up tension in an instant by way of a couple of well-placed inserts. The Keller Boy’s mental state is conveyed through quick-cut flashbacks, all without him uttering a word.
For those who love the style of Halloween and enjoy their chills to come at a deliberate drip, Freak is a damn fine thriller. Likely shot on 16mm short ends, a script that is simply the basest of narrative, and a crew that probably features more than a few family and friends – Tharpe manages to wring every drop from what he had available. Again, I feel the need to reiterate, while this is structurally a slasher film, the body count is very minimal as is the red sticky stuff. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this little indie. I can really sum it up for you as “Ti West decided to remake Halloween with a local Indiana theater troupe.” So…from that statement alone, you should know if this will be your jam or not.
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Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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