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Freaks (2018 film)

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Freaks
Directed byAdam Stein
Zach Lipovsky
Written byZach Lipovsky
Adam Stein
Produced byAdam Stein
Zach Lipovsky
Jordan Barber
Mitchell Waxman
StarringEmile Hirsch
Bruce Dern
Grace Park
Amanda Crew
Lexy Kolker
CinematographyStirling Bancroft
Edited bySabrina Pitre
Music byTimothy Michael Wynn
Production
companies
Amazing Incorporated
Wise Daughter Films
My Way Productions
Storyboard Capital Group
Distributed byWell Go USA Entertainment
Release dates
  • September 8, 2018 (2018-09-08) (TIFF)
  • September 13, 2019 (2019-09-13) (United States)
Running time
104 minutes
CountriesUnited States
Canada
LanguageEnglish
Box office$333,593[1][2]

Freaks is a 2018 American-Canadian science fiction thriller film directed, written and produced by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein. It stars Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park, Amanda Crew, and Lexy Kolker, who was seven years old at the time of filming. The film tells the story of a 7-year-old girl named Chloe (Kolker) who is locked in an abandoned house by her disturbed father (Hirsch). The mysterious Mr. Snowcone (Dern) convinces her to escape for his own suspicious reasons.[3]

The film had its world premiere on September 8, 2018, at Toronto International Film Festival and was released commercially in North America on September 13, 2019 by Well Go USA Entertainment.[4][5][6]

Plot

Chloe's father prevents her from leaving her dilapidated house or from even looking outside their boarded-up windows. It's not clear at first if there are actually dangers outside, as "Dad" believes, or if there is something psychologically wrong with him.

Chloe craves being a normal girl. She can hear the haunting music of an ice cream truck outside, and one day she catches a glimpse of a creepy ice cream truck with a hand printed "Mr. Snowcone" sign. When she eventually builds up the courage to defy her father and escape the house, she climbs onto the truck with Mr. Snowcone and into an adventure filled with hope, fear, and violence.

Cast

Release

Freaks premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2018. Two days later, Well Go USA Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film.[7]

After Toronto, the film screened at over 40 film festivals around the world, including the Sitges Film Festival in Spain, the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the Cinequest Film Festival, Cleveland Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Emerging Director award.[8] The Vancouver festival programmers wrote "Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein's skewed sci-fi thriller ratchets up the go-for-broke audacity as it laces the family drama of Room with genre confections indebted to vintage Spielberg."[9]

Freaks won the Asteroide Award, the top prize at the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival in Italy,[10] and the Audience Award at Utopiales in France.[11] It won Best Film and the Audience Award at the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival and won the Silver Raven Jury Prize at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.[12]

Freaks was released in theaters in the U.S. and Canada on September 13, 2019.[13] It was released for online sales and VOD on December 3, 2019, with a Blu-ray and DVD release on December 10, 2019.[14] After its online release, it topped the charts as the bestselling independent film on iTunes.[15]

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 88% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's consensus reads: "Stocked with solid performances, Freaks is a clever sci-fi/horror hybrid that suggests a bright future for co-writers/co-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein."[16]

Germain Lussier of io9 called Freaks "a wonderful, exciting film, filled with complex, robust ideas that not only have a unique twist to them but a realistic grounding that makes them more relatable and impactful."[17]

Writer Kristy Puchko praised the film as "sharp, suspenseful, and emotionally electrifying," "an original and gritty story of love and parenthood," and focused on the emotional power of the film: "I was raw with worry, drawing ragged breaths as tears streaked down my cheeks and my heart hammered with hope for her salvation."[18]

In The Hollywood Reporter, Justin Lowe praised the film's lead performances, stating that Kolker's "semi-improvised performance couldn't be any more authentic and she's well matched with Hirsch, drawing on his own parental experience, as her conflicted and overprotective father. The ever-versatile Dern delivers a slyly subversive turn as Mr. Snowcone, whose hidden agenda involves much more than frozen treats."[19]

Other reviewers praised the performance of young Lexy Kolker as well. Collider's Perri Nemiroff called her performance "truly unforgettable work"[20] and Variety's Andrew Barker said "relative newcomer Kolker carries the film effortlessly."[21] In its summary of the Toronto Film Festival, TheWrap listed Kolker as a potential award contender.[22]

In December 2018, the Toronto International Film Festival named the film to its annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list.[23]

References

  1. ^ "Freaks". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  2. ^ "Freaks". The Numbers. IMDb. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  3. ^ Toronto Film Festival's profile for "Freaks"
  4. ^ Release date information from Apple Trailers
  5. ^ Fleming, Mike (September 10, 2018). "Well Go In $2 Million Deal For 'Freaks' – Toronto". Deadline.
  6. ^ Vlessing, Etan (September 10, 2018). "Toronto: Well Go USA Takes Sci-Fi 'Freaks' for Multiple Territories". The Hollywood Reporter.
  7. ^ "Freaks". Deadline Hollywood. 2018.
  8. ^ "miss604.com". 2018.
  9. ^ Vancouver Film Festival's profile of "Freaks."
  10. ^ Announcement of winners at the Trieste Film Festival.
  11. ^ Announcement of winners at the Utopiales Festival in Nantes, France.
  12. ^ List of Nominations and Awards from IMDb
  13. ^ "40 Films to See This Summer". The Film Stage. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  14. ^ "Emile Hirsch Starring Sci-Fi Film Freaks Heads to Blu Ray in December". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
  15. ^ "Top Ten Movies on the iTunes Store". US News and World Report. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  16. ^ "Freaks (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  17. ^ Lussier, Germain (September 10, 2018). "Freaks Is Like a Great, Independent X-Men Movie". io9.com.
  18. ^ Puchko, Kristy (September 9, 2018). "Freaks Is A Sly Sci-Fi Alive With Surprise And Sentiment". riotmaterial.com.
  19. ^ Lowe, Justin (September 8, 2018). "Freaks: Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
  20. ^ "Freaks". Collider.
  21. ^ "Freaks". Variety. 2018.
  22. ^ Pond, Steve (September 9, 2018). "Toronto So Far: 'First Man' and 'A Star Is Born' Lead a Crop of Films With Heart and Dazzle". TheWrap.
  23. ^ "TIFF's Canada's Top Ten list skews a lot younger this year". Now, December 5, 2018.
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