Freaked (1993) on Netflix
Ricky Coogan takes a fortune to promote the fertilizer Zygrot 24 in Santa Flan with his friend Ernie. Julie, an environmentalist, joins them, and a detour leads to a freak show.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.4/109,606 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
On television, the journalist Skye Daley interviews the actor Ricky Coogan, who recounts how he came to sign an endorsement for Zygrot 24, a fertilizer made by the Everything Except Shoes corporation. The company's chairman, Dick Brian, offers him five million dollars, and Ricky sets off for the South American town of Santa Flan with his friend Ernie. A fan, Stuey Gluck, begs him on the flight not to promote the product. In Santa Flan, Ricky is drawn to Julie, an environmentalist campaigning against Zygrot 24, and passes himself off as a fellow protester so she will travel with him and Ernie. Their detour brings them to a local freak show run by Elijah C. Skuggs and his assistant Toad.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Freaked (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Winter and Stern pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox, where studio head Joe Roth loved it and offered the two a twelve million dollar deal to direct, despite the fact that neither of them had directed a major Hollywood film or had ever even shot on 35mm film before.
- During filming Rupert Murdoch replaced studio head Joe Roth with Peter Chernin, who did not like the film nor the fact that twelve million dollars was being invested in it. Chernin cut the post-production budget, which cost a demo song Iggy Pop had recorded for the closing credits, and the title was changed from “Hideous Mutant Freekz” to “Freaked”.
- After several poor test screenings Fox pulled the film from a nationwide release and cut its advertising budget. Freaked opened on only two screens in the United States, making a mere $6,957 in its first weekend, and grossed less than $30,000 during its whole theater run.
- According to Winter, Jackass star Johnny Knoxville served as a production assistant on the film and posed in full makeup as Ortiz the Dog Boy for a group photograph on a day when Keanu Reeves was unavailable.
- Under the working title Hideous Mutant Freekz, Winter, Stern and Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes wrote a first draft as an obscene, ultra-violent horror film again featuring the band, costing around $100,000. The idea, as Alex Winter put it, was “Beach Blanket Bingo meets The Evil Dead.”
- The makeup effects requirements were so substantial, and the lead time before filming so short, that the characters were designed and created by three different companies: Tony Gardner's Alterian, Inc., Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc., and Screaming Mad George's Studio.
