Anthology adventure Freaky Tales merges genres, stars, ska, and piles of dead Nazis in an authentic Oakland tale

Set in 1987 Oakland, Freaky Tales is a multi-track mixtape of colorful characters—an NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teen punks, neo-Nazis, and a debt collector—on a collision course in a fever dream of showdowns and battles. Executive produced by hip-hop pioneer Too $hort, and featuring an all-star ensemble including Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo, Angus Cloud, and Tom Hanks, this pulpy blend of explosive action, edgy humor, gory kills, and sly twists and turns makes for one wild ride.

Editor-in-Chief Brock Wilbur summed it up best when he texted me the following as we discussed Freaky Tales: “Love to see a movie that immediately is gonna become a comfort sick day rewatch thing.”

This movie has everything:
Nazis getting smashed
VHS glitchery
Women overcoming misogyny
Marshawn Lynch as a bus driver
A basketball player going full ninja warrior
Cartoons
Tim Armstrong endorsing a life-changing mental health program
More Nazis getting smashed
Gallons of blood
…and a couple falling in love.

It’s everything you love about genre cinema in one neon-hued package.

Given the rapturous personal response Brock and I had to directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s fantastic anthology film, one wonders why it took well over a year for it to make its way from a Sundance premiere to wide release. It’s exciting, clever, and creates a world in which 1987 Oakland is a place of weird, wonderful happenings.

It’s only upon reflection that one realizes that an anthology is a hard sell in and of itself, regardless of how well-executed it might be, and one with four intersecting storylines an even harder one. Add in the fact that our first segment, “Strength in Numbers,” quickly sees its on-screen chapter card scribbled out by animated stick-figure punks to read “The Gilman Strikes Back” before the sounds of ska-punk band Operation Ivy’s “Bad Town” begin coming out the speakers, and you start to realize these might be a niche picture.

The Gilman punks fight Nazis in a scene straight out of Scott Pilgrim vs the World, mixed with a bit of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, wherein every hit takes place in slo-mo, the better to see arterial spray and flying teeth. It’s also a love story. This only the first segment of four, and they’re all narrated interstitial by Oakland rap legend Too $hort.

Like I said: this might be a little niche.

There’s a green glow over the city, which may be smog and may be a magical force offering our various protagonists the ability to rise above the fray and take action in a way otherwise unattainable. You have the rap duo DangerZone, two young women by the names of Barbie (Dominique Thorne) and Entice (Normani), battling Too $hort and laying him low in “Don’t Fight the Feeling,” in “Born to Mack” an enforcer does “one last job” with metaphysical implications and a real-world fatality, and in the final chapter, “The Legend of Sleepy Floyd,” a basketball player seeks revenge.

Every segment has a flurry of action, with varying levels of danger, but that sense of never quite being certain as to what’s going to happen makes the end of each chapter feel like a glorious reveal. And, by starting out with bang and a bloodbath, while letting the middle two chapters build character, place, and not just a little tension before doubling down in the finale, you get multiple instances of rising and falling action, not unlike a rollercoaster created by master craftspeople.

While Freaky Tales isn’t quite as interconnected as Pulp Fiction, the actions in each chapter cross over just enough with the others to recall Trick ‘R Treat as you see characters passing by one another or in the background of a seemingly unrelated scene.

What does connect Freaky Tales, though, is the soundtrack. With a few exceptions, the music is contemporaneous with the Oakland locale and year in which it’s set. A scene in which a young man attempts to sell Pedro Pascal’s enforcer Clint a mixtape in “Born to Mack” almost literally spells out the Freaky Tales soundtrack: Too $hort, Tower of Power, Metallica, and more all feature and drive the action. In “The Legend of Sleepy Floyd,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” goes into E-40’s “Choices” and then Yarbrough and Peoples’ “Don’t Stop the Music,” creating an epic and violent musical montage which demonstrates just how cool Jay Ellis is as Golden State Warrior Sleepy Floyd, while also showcasing the musical vibrancy of the East Bay.

High praise for a film which begins not only with an Operation Ivy song, but two of them, and a group portraying the band onstage at legendary punk club 924 Gilman, to boot. Said segment also features another band covering Negative Approach and Black Flag. It’s an embarrassment of sonic riches, sure to make anyone who loves music feel as though somebody finally gets it.

The feeling, as you finish Freaky Tales, that you wish you could immediately watch it again is thankfully over this weekend, as the film finally sees wide release. While watching this from an easy chair is a fun time, you need another few dozen folks around to get the proper effect.

Freaky Tales hits theaters on Friday, April 4.