Strange things happened in Oakland, California, in 1987.
Freaky things, even.
A green glow hovered over the town, blasting green lightning, flipping power structures upside down and giving underdogs across the city a much longed-for victory.
Freaky Tales has four such examples it’d like to share with you.
You’d never expect Lucid and Tina, for example, to rally alongside a group of punk rockers to beat down Nazi rivals.
You wouldn’t think the inexperienced rap duo, Danger Zone, could compete against seasoned rapper Too $hort.
You’d place a bet against Clint, the reluctant intimidation man, ever getting away from that life of crime.
And you’d neverhope that the Golden State Warriors player Sleepy Floyd would put up 51 points to beat the Los Angeles Lakers—and follow that win up by slaughtering a house full of Nazis.
But as that green storm brews overhead, these underdogs have a shot at doing all of those things.
The first vignette showcases a group of people standing up against Nazis who go looking for trouble when no one else does anything about them.
In the second tale, two women overcome their fear of rejection and failure, finding success on a stage.
In the third story, Clint sincerely regrets his actions. It’s revealed that he’s been forced into a life of threatening people to pay back their debts because his own father died with a lot of debt, which was then passed on to him to repay. But eventually, he has enough, and he decides that even if his boss wants to kill him, he won’t continue in the business anymore. Likewise, he shows mercy to a man who greatly hurt him in the past.
And in the final story, Sleepy Floyd rescues (albeit unintentionally) a man and his baby while fighting Nazis.
Sleepy Floyd acts as a spokesperson for a company called Psytopics, a New Age “spiritual learning center” in which participants “will be given the tools to connect to the cosmic life force and the powers to battle both inner and outer demons.”
Characters throughout the movie discuss the company, wondering if it might help them change their realities. One client claims he learned “that there’s a cosmic force all around us.” Someone meditates to “connect to the cosmic emerald light.” And another character uses this energy to attack other people.
Somewhat related to those New Age practices is the green glow itself. People speculate about the origin of the energy, with some stating it came from aliens or that it is a sign of the end of the world. Nevertheless, that energy imbues a variety of objects, causing them to briefly glow and enabling the users to achieve victory in whatever they do. The glow seems to have a mind of its own, intentionally choosing to grant some people its undefined powers. And when green lightning strikes a bus, the vehicle flies into the clouds.
One character says he hopes to see someone else in hell. Another person compares the heat of a passionate encounter to the flames of hell. An announcer describes Sleepy Floyd’s basketball performance as “playing like a man possessed.”
Clint walks into the adult section of a video store, where we see a variety of pornographic movies titles there with nude or near-nude women on the front. We see exposed breasts and rears.
Someone walks in on a man performing oral sex on a woman.
We hear plenty of references to sex, masturbation, genitals (of both genders) and more, especially in the second tale’s rap battle. There, the male rapper implies that a woman must not want to have sex with him because she’s menstruating.
A woman asks a man what he’d do in a lucid dream with no consequences, and we see an animated stick figure version of the man pretend to thrust his groin on the woman’s face, revealing his hidden answer. A man explains the first time he saw a woman naked. A woman removes her shirt to nurse an injury on her side, and we see her in her bra. There’s a shirtless man.
A man directs many unwanted sexual comments towards a woman, referencing oral sex. He references having a “sweet tooth” for Black women, and he uses many double entendres in his conversation with this uncomfortable woman.
A man and woman kiss. Someone wonders if a guy got called “rainbow man” for being gay. A man’s facial hair is described as a “pornstar mustache.”
The Nazis harass people gathering at a music venue, barging in and then punching, kicking and pushing both men and women alike. They kick a woman in her ribs after pushing her on the ground and knock over a man using crutches. They also destroy a drum set.
However, the next time the Nazis return, they’re met with a punk army of adults wielding a variety of weapons. One Nazi takes a launched rock into his eye socket, and the others are decimated, too, their bodies and throats getting slashed with bladed weapons. These attacks result in over-the-top explosions of blood. One Nazi burns to death.
Later, Sleepy Floyd attacks a home full of Nazis, too, slicing them with swords and knives. All in all, he kills roughly three or four dozen men onscreen. He lops one man’s arm off onscreen, and he buries a hatchet into the skull of another opponent. He punches a hole through a man’s stomach, revealing his innards. He decapitates another person. And he uses a power somewhat like the Force from Star Wars to cause a man to explode, showering the whole room in a gory blast of red. Someone’s head explodes.
A pregnant woman is shot in her stomach and dies. Her baby, though unresponsive in the hospital for some time, eventually survives. Clint beats a man to death in front of the man’s son. Someone else gets shot in the side.
We’re told that a woman began bleeding from her eyes and ears while at Psytopics. We see Clint suffer a nosebleed. Someone breaks a man’s finger. A man contemplates suicide. A character shoots three people offscreen, and we’re told that one of them died—we see their blood sprayed across a TV. Someone stabs a beagle to death, and while we don’t see it, we hear the yelp of the dog.
We hear the f-word roughly 50 times, including a handful of instances preceded by “mother.” We hear the n-word about 10 times and the s-word more than 30. Crude words for male and female anatomy are tossed out, too. There are multiple uses of “a–,” “d–n,” “b–ch,” “h—,” “p-ss” and more. God’s name is joined with “d–n” twice. Jesus’ name is used in vain once.
Derogatory slurs include “ho,” “dyke” and “f-ggot.” A Nazi demeans a man by referring to him dismissively as “Jew” rather than using his name.
People snort cocaine. Someone makes a reference to dealing drugs. Characters smoke from a bong. Some also smoke joints and cigarettes. Other people drink alcohol.
Nazis roam the streets of Oakland. They gather to raise their arms in a Nazi salute. A corrupt cop works with them and allows their actions. We see many instances of racism against Black people.
Nazis break into homes and steal property.
We’re told that someone urinated on a phone. We see a man urinate on a stage.
Freaky Tales is a Pulp Fiction-esque anthology film set in 1987’s Oakland, California, that’s filled with mysterious green energy, a New Age meditation cult and a couple of embellished moments of Oakland history—not that knowing any of that will help explain things.
The four tales are tied together (some more loosely than others) via strange happenings that occurred in the city in 1987, some of which are loosely based on true events (once again, some more loosely than others). The plumb line through the stories is a mysterious green energy that provides our protagonists with…well, we’re not sure what. Confidence? Fighting skills? Plot armor? Regardless, it temporarily empowers a piece of equipment each person wears or uses, and then the plot swings in their favor.
The tales focus heavily on the idea of underdog victories: in the first, alternative punk kids beat up a group of Nazis; in the second, an aspiring rap duo goes up against a seasoned professional in a rap battle; the third centers on a reluctant intimidation man forced into the life looking for a way out of it; and, in the fourth, the Oakland Warriors beat the Los Angeles Lakers before Sleepy Floyd slaughters a home full of Nazis. There’s a strange implication that these underdogs were empowered to win by that aforementioned green energy and couldn’t have succeeded by their own power, but I’m not so sure that’s the message we’re supposed to take away from the underdeveloped concept.
And I suppose that underdeveloped is the key word for Freaky Tales, since the stories aren’t long enough for us to truly appreciate the characters. The most compelling is certainly the story of Pedro Pascal’s character—a thought seemingly shared by the movie’s trailer, which focused most of its attention on that specific vignette, to the detriment of the other three. But even that story ends far too abruptly for us to glean anything useful from it.
Instead, we’re left with three stories full of people beating the blood outta Nazis and one story about a rap battle that feels completely disconnected from the other three. And each comes with a slew of crude language and sexual content concerns.
In the end, Freaky Tales gives viewers plenty of reasons to look for a better story elsewhere.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
