Freaky Tales

A vibrant green energy pulses through the streets of Oakland, California, as an NBA star, a pair of female rappers, some teenage punks, and a bookie’s shilo try to live and love in the year 1987, as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and corrupt cops all stand in their way.

Anthology films are where a single film will consist of three or more shorter films, with each of those shorter films telling its own story, separate from the others, but often times tied together by a single theme, premise, or author. Sometimes each one is directed by a different director, or written by a different author, and they may have been made at different times, or in different countries. A few examples of the anthology film are... The French Dispatch, Tales of the Crypt, Sin City, Coffee and Cigarettes, Kinds of Kindness, Night on Earth, Four Rooms, and one of my favorites, Go, among many others, and now, Freaky Tales.

An 80s set revenge-fantasy anthology flick, Freaky Tales is set in the Oakland that existed before all the toxic gentrifiers and the Nazi Tech Bros moved in. Mimicking a film from the 80s, it’s got a scratchy, VHS-quality style to its visuals and opening graphics, and even has fake cue marks regularly spaced throughout.

Unlike most of the 1980s, Freaky Tales includes a very clear message that Nazi punks should fuck off, and notes that it’s always whitey who seems to be the enemy to everyone else’s joy, all while telling four somewhat interconnected stories, some of which are actually fictionalized versions of real events, and all of which take place at real locations in Oakland, California.

"Strength in Numbers: The Gilman Strikes Back"

Young punks Tina and Lucid exit a showing of Lost Boys at the Grand Lake Theater, casually complaining that the fact that grandpa didn’t tell his family about Santa Carla's vampire problem was kind of fucked up, when a passing pickup truck full of white Nazi skinheads yell slurs at the crowd outside the theater. The pair freely share their feelings about Nazis with the passing Nazis.

Later that night, they’re at an Operation Ivy show at 924 Gilman Street, when those same Nazis show up, assault the crowd, and destroy the music equipment, ending the show. The next day, the punks gather and decide to organize a defense to protect both the place and the scene that they love. Lucid and Tina are just two punk rockers in love, and Lucid buys her a spiked bracelet that will be perfect for Nazi-stabbing.

When the Nazis return to Gilman, the punks are well-armed, and they beat the absolute shit of the Nazis, stomping them into the street. Tina's spiked bracelet emits a magical green light as she fights, stabbing one skinhead fucker right in the neck. The Nazis run like whipped dogs.

The Punks end that beautiful night with a Black Flag concert.

"Don't Fight the Feeling"

Two young women, Barbie and Entice, exit the same showing of Lost Boys at the Grand Lake theater, and they are also complaining that grandpa didn’t tell his family about Santa Carla's huge vampire problem, when a pickup truck of Nazi white guys drive by, shouting slurs. They shout back at the truckload of ugly cowards and Nazi bigots. This causes a conversation with another moviegoer, and he is familiar with Barbie and Entice's budding rap career, where they are known as Danger Zone. He invites them to come down to the club, Sweet Jimmie’s, to perform in a rap battle against the local legend, the rapper Too Short.

The next day at their job at an ice cream shop, Barbie and Entice are sexually harassed by a swarmy asshole plainclothes police detective. Angry at the terrible and constant reality of America, and a little shaken too, they show up at the club, and after a brief hesitation, they appear on stage as Danger Zone.

Momentarily demoralized by the misogyny of Too Short's lyrics, a magical green light illuminates their mics, and that's when the pair steps up and take the stage, winning the crowd over. They steal the show from Too Short, who congratulates them on their skills.

"Born to Mack"

Clint is leg-breaker for a local gang, collecting on outstanding debts owed to the man he works for. He does this because his father owed a local crime boss so much money, when he passed, his debt passed to Clint. Now, with his pregnant girlfriend about to give birth, Clint wants out, and he only has one last job.

But the world seems to be against him.

Years ago, as a child, a young man watched Clint kill his father while collecting a debt, and it ruined the kid's life. He can't live with it any longer, and now he’s out for revenge. But in the chaos, he accidentally shoots Clint's pregnant wife instead. She dies at the hospital, and it looks like the baby is going to die too. This is when the criminal organization that Clint works for tells him that he still owes them, that they aren’t willing to let him go, and they demand he help them pull a job during the upcoming game four between the Golden State Warriors and the LA Lakers. Believing that his entire family is dead, and that he has nothing more to lose, he tells them to fuck off, and to come find him at any time If they don’t like it.

As he leaves, he pauses, seeing Lucid giving Tina her bracelet, and when he finds out that it's for stabbing Nazis, he advises her to aim for the neck.

Clint is then picked up by the police, because they want him to identify the man who shot his wife. While he is at the police station, the same cop that harrassed Barbie and Entice hears when Clint learns that his baby is going to be okay, and congratulates him on having something to lose now.

Recognizing the man who shot his wife in the police lineup, and as a strange green energy is reflected in the man's tears, Clint realizes that it was his own actions that caused all of this, and that the chance to stop all of this pain and to break the cycle of violence lies with him, so Clint refuses to identify him.

"The Legend of Sleepy Floyd"

While Eric “Sleepy” Floyd is busy playing a record-setting game four in the NBA seminfinals for the Golden State Warriors, his house is being robbed, as are the houses of several of his teammates. It's a large and coordinated heist that is being perpetuated by a gang of Nazi bikers, the same people who tried to strongarm Clint into joining them. And the whole job is being run by the same crooked cop who not only harrased Barbie and Entice, but was forcing Clint to work for him, and who is also, it turns out, the father of the leader of the group of Nazi skinheads that has been attacking the punks at Gilman.

But in an unfortunate coincidence, Floyd’s mother isn’t feeling very well, so she leaves the game early, accompanied by one of his brothers, and Floyd's girlfriend. His family interupts the Nazis mid-robbery, his mother and brother are attacked, and his girlfriend is murdered.

But in a better coincidence, the pair of young lovers and punks, Tina and Lucid, happened to have overheard the Nazi telling Clint about the upcoming job, and bored, had decided to follow the Nazi home for shits and giggles. When they heard about the murder, they got ahold of Sleepy Floyd’s phone number, and just before their own rumble with the skinheads happened, they called Floyd and tipped him off as to who was responsible.

Sleepy Floyd enters his secret vault, the walls lines with ninja weaponry, and using the power of Psytopics–a mindfulness zen energy kind of program that he is often seen promoting on TV throughout the film–he astral-projects a heavily-armed and trench coat and warm-up gear clad kung-fu warrior version of himself to the house of the crooked cop and the Nazi gang. He goes full-on sick-house murder machine on all the Nazis, using sword, axe, mace, knives, and kung fu fighting that is as fast as lighting, proving once again that the only good Nazis are dead Nazis. And at the last, Sleepy Floyd uses his Psytopic power, his eyes glowing a brilliant green, to explode the crooked cop like a balloon filled with bloody meat.

But before all this happened, the crooked cop had his people jump Clint and bring him and his baby to the house, where they severely beat Clint, all while holding his newborn baby hostage. But now that the Nazis are all dead at the mystical hands of Sleepy Floyd, Clint and his baby walk free into Oakland night. As they are leaving, the beaten and battered truckload of skinheads arrive home and find that their entire house is filled with dead Nazis. And on the wall, scrawled in the blood of the crooked cop is written: "Sleepy Floyd is Superman! #21"

Floyd is later seen doing a new advertisement for Psytopics, joined by the punks, the members of Danger Zone, and other characters from the movie, and he ends it with a stern warning to all the Nazis out there that he is always willing to “blow their minds.”

Freaky Tale is somewhat based on real life events.

Obviously fictionalized, it depicts actual events like the time when the punks at 924 Gilman stomped a bunch of Nazi fucks into the pavement and then ran them off, or the time Too Short released the song “Don’t Fight The Feelin’” where the often misogynistic rapper is taken down by the female rap duo Danger Zone, who mocked his money, his bad breath, and his dick, and finally, the main event, Game 4 of the 1987 NBA playoffs, when the Warriors were down 3-0 in the series against the Lakers and trailing 102-88 going into the fourth quarter, only for Eric “Sleepy” Floyd to wake up, and score 29 points, driving the Warriors to victory, and leading Game announcer Greg Papa to exclaim, “Sleepy Floyd is Superman!” Yes, it’s true the Warriors lost it all in the 5th game, but that 4th game is all that really matters. Floyd’s performance that night still stands as the NBA postseason record for the most points scored by a player in a single quarter.

The rest is fictionalized... at least, as far as we know.

With an energy and a style that is immediately reminscent of Pulp Fiction and Repo Man, Freaky Tales is an absolute blast. Just a good time. And that's without all the times we get the undeniable pleasure of watching whitey get his ass kicked for being an ugly bigot, an entitled asshole, and a happy Nazi.

I've seen a few people complain that the connective tissue between these stories is too thin, that the green energy isn't explained enough, and that some of the stories aren't as developed as others, and I'm not going to say that this is untrue, just that I don't feel like it was all that much of an issue. Additionally, I would also say that, in my honest opinion, I feel like this particular complaint is mostly rooted in an all too typical contrarian effort by critics in order to have something on the Con list they can point to, so that they seem "fair minded," most likely because, otherwise, this film is just a good time with a hell of a lot of Pros.

I am always loathe to use "Oscar Winner" as some kind of metric of quality, but yeah, Freaky Tales isn't an "Oscar Winner" by any stretch, but at no point does it feel like that's the film's goal either. It's fun, and it's well done, which seems like that was its intent, and since that's what it accomplished, that sounds like success to me. Freaky Tales isn't just a love letter to a certain kind of movie, not to mention a specific era of filmmaking, it's also a love letter to a specific time in a specific city, one that is now being pillaged by shitty gentrifiers, and as a result, is in danger of losing that energy that made it such a vibrant and special place, and I don't think it's fair to ask for a nebulous "deeper" meaning than that. This is nostalgia. This is rose-colored glasses. This is irreverent fun. Plus, it does have a commentary about society. It doesn't have to be any more than that. That's enough. That's okay. Sometimes it's just fun to joke and page through an old photo album.

In that spirit, classic Bay Area bands like Operation Ivy, Sly and the Family Stone, Too Short, and Metallica all show up on the soundtrack, and the real Sleepy Floyd and Too Short, as well as former NFL player Marshawn Lynch, and Rancid’s Tim Armstrong all have cameos. As does Tom Hanks, who used to sell hot dogs at A’s games back in the day. He shows up as a video store manager who's just trying to provide an experience here, offering a list of the greatest underdog movies of all time. He starts with "Rocky" at No. 5, as it's the most obvious choice, then places Hoosiers at No. 4, The Dirty Dozen at No. 3, and The Verdict at No. 2. But he is interupted and doesn’t get to reveal his top choice before Clint has to go and take care of some business, and then he's on his lunch break when Clint gets back, but he drops some hints... It’s a 1979 film, and he then quotes Roger Ebert's review, which said: "Movies like this are hardly ever made at all; when they’re made this well, they’re precious cinematic miracles." This means the number one underdog movie of all time is Breaking Away.

Your mileage may vary on the list itself, but the point here is to highlight that the stories in this film are underdog stories, all taking place in an underdog city, and by setting its protaganists against a system that not only encourgages, teaches, and supports, but also rewards White Supremacy, it is making a very clear statement as to who is on the right side of history, and who are "the baddies."

I always appreciate that.

Even if the people the film is talking about don't notice.

And that's all the Green Glow is.

The film clearly links the glow to Psytopics–the made-up spiritual program that feels like a cross between The Force, Zen Buddhism, and Wu-Tang–but it also runs through the city of Oakland. To me, the glow is supposed to represent the soul of this particular era, the vibe, the "special juice" of the streets, if you will. It shows up in the eyes, the tears, and the fighting spirit of its people. When a bolt of green lightning hits 924 Gilman, the punks charge into battle. When Clint sees a single green-glowing tear on the young man's face, he decides to break the cycle and let him walk free. When a bolt of green light sparks Entice's microphone, she finds the courage to take the stage against Too $hort. And when it shines from the eyes of Sleepy Floyd… he’s about to blow some minds. Also, it looks like the same alien energy that shows up in Repo Man.

I don't think it's supposed to have a more specific explanation than that. I guess you either understand it or you don't. Like Sho'Nuff and Bruce Leroy taught us all long ago... You just gotta feel the Glow.

In the end, Freaky Tales is a blast. Big thumbs up.