Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s sci-fi thriller “Freaks” has been enjoying a recent resurgence thanks to the generous recommendation of acclaimed filmmaker Mike Flanagan, best known for the Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House.” The film’s projection of a group of outliers who have special powers called the Abnormals/Freaks incorporates quite a bit of political commentary.
The tinge of a comment on xenophobia and anti-immigration bent is unmistakably present, though the film goes all broad and flexes superhero muscles very quickly. What could have been a moving parent-child story turns generic, unappealing, and slapdash in imagination and presentation. The progression of the narrative trajectory is uninspired at best and clumsy at worst. “Freaks” is an ultimate call for ownership and embrace of one’s identity, pushing back at prejudices and antipathies of others.
Freaks (2018) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with a seemingly simple, unusual father-daughter story. Chloe (Lexy Kolker) is kept locked up at home by her dad, Henry (Emile Hirsch). He is in constant paranoia and tutors her, fully sheltering herself from the outside world. While he goes out for grocery shopping and essentials, she is strictly forbidden from stepping out. He tells her everyone in the outside world is out to kill them, and they cannot risk going out. But Chloe cannot repress her pining for experiencing what lies beyond the door. She knows it’s loaded with high risk, but like all curious kids, she is unstoppable in her determined quest. Chloe is driven by inquisitiveness.
She is desperate for the care of a maternal figure. One day, she sees her mother in the closet. Henry is insistent she has dreamt it up as the mother, Mary, is supposedly dead. It couldn’t have been her, he states. Chloe also observes an ice cream truck regularly appearing outside their house; Henry denies her wish for ice cream. But Chloe is so hellbent she finally escapes one day and hops into the ice-cream truck with the seller, Alan (Bruce Dern), who insists he is her grandfather. Alan is quite overbearing and dominating. It is through him the narrative slowly reveals the reasons why the father and daughter have been leading a reclusive existence.
They are part of an ‘abnormal’ breed with extraordinary powers like telepathy, among others. Their giveaway feature is that they bleed from their eyes if they use too much of their powers. Alan has the gift of invisibility, while Henry can create temporal bubbles to protect and preempt an attack. Mary (Amanda Crew) has been imprisoned in an underground facility in the Madoc mountain, the grandfather tells Chloe. The ‘freaks’ are mostly viewed as a liability in society that has to be expunged.
But for those among youths like Chloe, the government has pinned its hopes on using them, training them to be utilized as weapons of another sort, though it refuses to trade in such language that’d make its intentions doubly explicit. Alan tries to take Chloe to one of the special agents, Cecilia Ray (Grace Park). His plan is to make the agents ship her off to the facility where her mother also is, which is how they can devise a possible breakout. But Chloe balks at the proposal and forces Alan to take her back home.
At home, Henry is enraged. The two have another of their frequent tiffs, and she screams at him, wishing he were dead instead. She is tired of hiding and how much he has kept concealed from her. Alan has been holding a bubble in place by manipulating time. Although it has only been a few months for the outside world, he has been hiding with his daughter for as many as seven whole years.
He cannot, however, dictate her growth, which complicates things and enhances her independent decision-making and desire for autonomy. Henry is distraught that Chloe has been seeing Alan, whom he perceives as a negative influence on his daughter. He decides to bring her over to the neighbors, Nancy and her daughter. However, Nancy wasn’t aware Chloe was a ‘freak’. Chloe uses her powers to overkill, leading to Nancy getting killed later on by the agents under suspicion of being a freak.
Agent Ray is still hunting for the freaks and lands at Henry’s doorstep. While Henry tries to pretend to have some other identity. Ray reveals she knows who he is. She is well aware his wife was apparently responsible for the destruction of Dallas and insists he must hand over his child as he has no other option. Meanwhile, Chloe helps orchestrate her mother’s prison break. She oversees the entire thing by slipping into the consciousness of one of the guards, manipulating him to ease her mother’s unhindered passage out of the facility. So, there are two parallel tracks running at this climactic point.
Freaks (2018) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Chloe’s mother manage to escape?
The climax is filled with possibilities of things going horribly wrong. The situation, anyway, points to the agents and government having the upper hand. Agent Ray informs Henry that either he can choose not to cooperate and risk hellfire and a complete bloodbath or hand over Chloe. However, she is honest with him, telling him he’d be ultimately killed, his life as a sacrifice for his daughter. Chloe’s operation with her mother is almost going smoothly until there’s a hiccup, and the authorities get alerted. But her mother succeeds at making it out.
Chloe attempts to intervene in the negotiation between Ray and her father, culminating in a shootout with everyone but her getting lethally wounded. Mary swoops in, rescuing Chloe and assuring her she will find a new hideout. However, Chloe asserts she’s done hiding and insists they can live wherever they want since they have the power to retaliate if anyone tries to attack them. The film closes with the two shooting up in pursuit of a new home where they can live openly, fearlessly, and without being undercover all the time.
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