Really Awful Movies

Some Freaks is not the typical type of picture you would expect to find playing at a world-renowned genre festival, but then again, Fantasia isn’t your typical genre fest. Hence, the darkly empathetic, teen-coming-of-age drama fits in perfectly alongside films by Takashi Miike and Mike Flanagan. Some Freaks is John Hughes meets Todd Solondz (or more accurately, Neil LaBute, who served as executive producer on the film.)

Self-identity, self-perception and self-confidence are the themes that govern Some Freaks; the word “Freak” in the title applying to just about every central character in some way or another. High-school senior Matt is definitely a freak. Literally. Missing one eye and forced to wear an eye patch, Matt (played by Thomas Mann, who was excellent in last year’s superb Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) roams the halls of his high school as his schoolmates ridicule his “deformity” with taunts of “cyclops”. Like all high school outcasts, Matt has that one friend who’s just as socially awkward as he is. In this case, it’s Elmo (Ely Henry), a stubby teen whose outward humor masks some serious insecurities as a result of his inward struggle with his sexuality. He’s a freak too, but his freakishness is more of the introspective, “I don’t know where I belong” type. Straddling the line between the internal and external freak is Jill (Lily Mae Harrington), Elmo’s cousin, who has recently transferred to their high school. In a world of “normals,” Jill is decidedly not-so. She’s overweight, dies her hair green and has multiple piercings. Her external freakishness is denoted by the cruel put-downs directed toward her, but she seems to have made peace with her freakishness. Seems being the operative word.

Of course, after an inauspicious first meeting, Matt and Jill begin to hang out. First as friends, then as lovers. Two outcasts coming together, discovering a kindred spirit and reveling in their perceived otherness. Perceived being the other operative word.

For Some Freaks is really about perception. How we perceive (and preconceive) others, sure, but more importantly, how others perceive us. And how our perceptions of the way other’s perceive us dictate the way we feel about ourselves. In No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote “Hell is other people”. According to the French philosopher, we become objects in the gaze of others, resulting in the feeling of shame. The gaze of the other freezes us into a sort of being that we may or may not be, but it is the other who defines us. And how we create and recreate ourselves is dependent on the approval (or disapproval) of the other.

For as long as Matt and Jill approve of one another, all is hunky dory. But when Jill goes away to college, loses 50 pounds and dies her hair blonde, Matt no longer approves. Not anymore is Jill the other whom he wants/needs her to be, and his insecurities and sense of self, once buoyed by her presence, begin to crumble. He lashes out violently both physically and emotionally, and Jill returns the sentiment.

The film raises a lot of questions surrounding identity and normalcy. It sets itself among adolescents, a time of life when the grasp on those concepts is at its most tenuous. But Some Freaks is not a film just for adolescents. First-time writer and director Ian MacAllister McDonald has created a challenging picture which will resonate with viewers of all ages – from the very young to the very old. For at the end of the day, young, old or in-between, aren’t we’re all just freaks withering within the gaze of the other? In Some Freaks, every viewer will recognize a part of themselves. And though that recognition might be uncomfortable, it is also what makes us the most human.

A must see.

**** (out of five)

A prickly Don Imus-type, Grant Mazzy, takes over hosting duties at a small-market radio station in Pontypool, Ontario.

He’s a gnarly shock jock clearly dealing as much with personal demons as he is with this not exactly top-flight gig, where the “eyes in the sky” traffic report is actually being done by a terrestrially-bound guy in a car.

Driving into work for the morning show, he’s startled by a strange and scary encounter with a woman on the road in the midst of a snowdrift, who then disappears into the darkness. Because he inhabits the world of talk radio (the subject matter that is, not the 1987 Pulitzer Prize-nominated play and cool thriller Talk Radio written by Eric Bogosian) the odd roadside interaction becomes call-in fodder: During what circumstances can you justify a call to 911? Is the service ever abused? Where would that situation fit in?

Callers drone on while The New Guy works out show kinks with his two young producers, i.e. how to cut to breaking news, “weather on the 1s” and all the other tedious talk radio conventions that have made the medium lose ground to podcasting.

Pontypool’s subject matter is interesting, especially for radio lovers.

Chat radio is often the target of broadsides by the political cognoscenti for being angry and reactionary — often true — but hosts also often have a better sense of what’s happening on main street than their critics.

And unlike dinnertime news anchors, radio hosts are more likely to be thrown into the fray when breaking news happens; to wit, the chilling turn The Howard Stern show took after planes hit the World Trade Center.

Here, Grant Mazzy starts getting call-in updates about an apparent disturbance outside the office of one Dr. Mendez, where large groups are gathering and acting strangely. The shock jock suddenly finds himself going live about the matter with the BBC.

After reports of a possible virus, the radio station, a place people turned to before Twitter in emergencies, is quarantined.

Pontypool is incredibly polarizing. A few attention span-deficient critics have bemoaned not seeing as much as they would’ve liked, when in reality the film is much more War of the Worlds than the world created by the likes of Romero. And that’s not a bad thing. Not every contagion film requires squibs, barbed wire fences and shotguns.

The horror here is quietly intimate, much like the relationship between a radio station and a listener.

And horror critics routinely deride the sameness of so many of its conventions, something absolutely impossible to do here with the breathtakingly original, if not entirely effective, denouement (which takes on special resonance for Canadian viewers).

Director Bruce McDonald is a cool dude, and a prominent local talent. We first got wind of his work via Hard Core Logo, a mock-doc that caught Tarantino’s attention (he bought distribution rights stateside). We’re particularly excited about an upcoming project he’s working on (details of which we cannot divulge, as much as we’d like to).

Pontypool is as good a place as any to become acquainted with McDonald’s work.

***1/2 (out of 5)