Freaks (2019)
Directed by Zach Lipovsky
Kept locked inside the house by her father, 7-year-old Chloe lives in fear and fascination of the outside world, where Abnormals create a constant threat—or so she believes. When a mysterious stranger offers her a glimpse of what's really happening outside, Chloe soon finds that while the truth isn't so simple, the danger is very real.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced Freaks
What critics say influenced Freaks
These scenes have echoes both of Yorgos Lanthimos’ disturbing Dogtooth and the gripping 10 Cloverfield Lane , but they lack the narrative and psychological richness of either of those films.
Films like Bad Boy Bubby , Dogtooth , Miss Violence , Room , Brigsby Bear and Wildling have inured viewers to the type of plot in which children are perversely reared by parents or parental figures in hermetic milieux, and Freaks certainly seems, at least at first, to conform to this template, presenting us with a little girl whose view of life beyond the door has been skewed by a disturbed, controlling father.
That initial setup suggests something between Room , the family drama where a child (Jacob Tremblay) grows up from birth in the shed where a rapist is holding his mother captive, and Dogtooth , Yorgos Lanthimos’ disturbing drama about a couple who consciously teach their adult children all sorts of bizarre and disturbing things while isolating them from the world.
The story is clever without being convoluted, reaching an exciting, heartfelt climax, and the broader allegorical nature of the themes raised makes it feel like a throwback to the golden age of 1970s sci-fi like Soylent Green (1973) and Logan’s Run (1976), but with a distinctly modern execution.
Films like Bad Boy Bubby , Dogtooth , Miss Violence , Room , Brigsby Bear and Wildling have inured viewers to the type of plot in which children are perversely reared by parents or parental figures in hermetic milieux, and Freaks certainly seems, at least at first, to conform to this template, presenting us with a little girl whose view of life beyond the door has been skewed by a disturbed, controlling father.
They, too, began with a small-scale winner (2012’s “Resolution”) before moving onto more ambitious fare (2014’s “Spring” and last year’s “The Endless”).