Frankie Freako is what happens when Gremlins and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie get blackout drunk in a Tim Hortons parking lot and film whatever happens next. It’s ridiculous. It’s disgusting, covered in glue, and it just may be one of the most baffling “so-bad-it’s-good” movies that no human being should see—yet somehow, everyone needs to.
And of course, something this messed up could only come from Canada.
Frankie Freako opens with Conor—who just might be the most aggressively boring man ever put on screen. He says things like “gosh darn” while having a rage problem. He vacuums his house like it’s foreplay. And somehow, the movie thinks this is the guy we should root for. Even in the bedroom, when his too-hot-for-him wife tries to seduce him, he prefers to hold hands than satisfy her urges.
But when his wife leaves for the weekend on a business trip, his plan of spending the night vacuuming and dusting the furniture is thrown into a frenzy when he succumbs to his urges and decides to call the 1-900 number run by a gremlin named Frankie Freako.
His ad plays like a party sex line mashed with a bootleg Chuck E. Cheese commercial, promising to “Bust you out of your boredom box!” Because this square wants to spend a night with the ultimate party animal.
The next morning, Conor wakes to find his once immaculate house in a state of disrepair—but worst of all is the fact that Conor’s late-night mistake is still there, like when you wake up next to someone you have no memory of bringing home from the bar and can only regret your decisions when you’re sober.
Still raging in his kitchen is the aforementioned party animal king, Frankie Freako. Then there’s Boink, who only speaks gibberish. And finally, there’s Dottie Dunko—a bandana-wearing Calamity Jane type, armed with a set of her own six-shooters.
Conor, somehow still trying to be a normal adult, threatens to call the cops on his unwanted house guests, provoking Dottie to shoot him and kick off a full-blown puppet riot as the three gremlins continue to trash his house—including smashing his wife’s precious sculptures. Conor feebly attempts to fight off his assailants—because yes, this movie features a grown man beating the hell out of a puppet while screaming apologies to his wife. And this is only the first act.
Then, because this movie can only get weirder, after Conor regains consciousness (because the puppets clearly outsmarted him), like the tool that he is, Conor agrees to go into work because his sleazebag of a boss wants him to shred incriminating documents.
And Conor, being the idiot that he is, shows up at his job—clearly unaware that his boss is setting him up to take the fall. But while at the office, Frankie and the gang show up again because they’re not done tormenting this corporate goon. The three little miscreants then continue to plague him at work.
His boss, motivated by the notion of one of the gremlins being a cowgirl, agrees to come to Conor’s house and help him deal with the issue. And yes—you read that right. His boss totally wants to hook-up with the cowgirl puppet. Because that’s a thing in this movie.
Back at the house, the movie goes from Home Alone to a Canadian version of Saw—complete with bear traps, trip wires connected to loaded handguns, and a vat of industrial super glue. A full-on booby trap sequence kicks in, and yet somehow, none of it feels out of place.
Oh—and that cowgirl puppet? She openly attempts to seduce Conor’s boss. And he is so into it. Why? Don’t ask.
Then, because no one asked for it, we get the Frankie Freako lore dump. Because that’s what this movie was missing: a deep gremlin puppet backstory. An ancient VHS explains that Frankie Freako and his pals are party gremlins who managed to escape their home planet through the phone lines in order to get away from the power-hungry Freako dictator named President Munch. Yes—President Munch.
The gremlins, now on Earth, use the hotline to invade houses and party. Because after all, all they want to do is party.
Finally giving in, Conor agrees to party with the trio, allowing himself to finally have some fun—including shredding his boss’s documents, while his boss is cocooned in a pile of glue in Conor’s basement.
But sadly, all things must come to an end, as it appears that the Freako Killers—yes, actual puppet assassins—manage to locate the fugitives and drag everyone, including Conor, back to Freak World.
There, Conor is hosed down, humiliated, and dressed in a purple sissy outfit for the enjoyment of President Munch, who wants to make him his puppet concubine.
Once inside the evil overlord’s office, the captives are faced with the Dial of Doom—a sinister contraption that assesses your “freakiness meter.” Pass and you live. Fail, and your face melts like a Nazi in Indiana Jones. But can a world filled with deviant freaks survive a machine that literally fries you for being a freak? Oh wait—what about the boring guy who never does anything.
After thwarting President Munch’s evil plan and escaping his clutches—not before saving Dottie, who was somehow, in the meantime, taken away and reprogrammed into a robot (again, just go with it)—the four are able to escape, while fighting off killer robots who look like knock-off Puppet Master characters.
Now back on Earth, the Freako party continues. But wait—President Munch somehow manages to follow them back through the phone, now transformed into a giant freaklord armed with a chainsaw. Yes. This shit is still going on.
Using the art of seduction, Conor lures Munch into the basement and back into the deadly traps previously laid out by Freako—who, if you stop and think about it, intended to kill Conor.
But not even bullets can stop this evil freaklord. Only the power of prayer can save them, as apparently Frankie is also a demon who spits hellfire when he sees a cross—because at this point, that’s not even the stupidest thing we’ve seen so far.
With President Munch defeated, the quartet of heroes horribly attempt to fix the now even more destroyed house before Conor’s wife comes back from her business trip—in what can only be described as the worst home repair montage ever recorded on film. I mean seriously, they somehow manage to make the house look even worse than it did before.
Here I would say I’m not going to spoil the ending, but who are we kidding. You have either stopped reading at this point and turned on the movie to see if I’m lying about everything that happened, or you gave up and said forget this movie—so you won’t care if I spoil the ending.
In a surprise twist, it turns out Conor’s wife is friends with Frankie and the gang—having gone to “gun college” with Dottie. Sure. At this point, anything is a thing in this movie.
She initially set Conor up to call the hotline, hoping that the three gremlins could help break him out of his shell and turn him into a freak just like them. Then, because logic doesn’t exist in this movie, the five of them agree to spend the holidays together. Because God bless us, everyone.
Yes. That’s the ending.
They live happily ever after.
There’s a moment during Frankie Freako—somewhere between the fart-powered train and the gremlin puppets attempting to have sex with a human—where you realize you’re not just watching this movie anymore… you’re stuck with it. Every part of your brain is screaming to turn it off, but somehow, you stay. You keep watching. That’s not entertainment. That’s Stockholm syndrome.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s stupid. But it’s also infused with the same brand of low-budget madness that made WolfCop, Hobo with a Shotgun, and yes, The Peanut Butter Solution into unforgettable Canadian fever dreams. It rides the line between trash and triumph so hard that you start to lose track of which side you’re on.
You shouldn’t watch this movie.
But at the same time?
You kind of have to.
Frankie Freako is one of those perfect storms of chaos where the sheer volume of terrible choices makes it impossible to look away. It’s the kind of film that makes you question your taste in movies, and forces you to ask yourself, “Do I like bad movies?” And the short answer is, if you’re watching this film, then the answer is yes.
And once it’s over?
You’ll stare at your TV like it just personally betrayed you.
You’ll feel cheap and dirty for reasons you can’t explain.
You might even take a shower, just to scrub your brain.
But the real gift? As completely unhinged and mind-numbing as it is, Frankie Freako has no staying power. The moment it’s over, your brain will politely start to purge it from your memory. You’ll forget what happened scene by scene—until only the weirdest bits remain, festering in some dark little part of your brain. The part you never admit exists.
And just like an addict promising to never drink again, you’ll tell yourself: never again.
But you’ll remember.
You’ll remember when you hit that low point in your life and you watched Frankie Freako.
A movie that should never be watched—
but somehow still needs to be seen.
