Horror Movie Review: Freaks of Nature (2015)

“That zombie just put one of my intestines back in and pulled out another, what’s the difference!”

Freaks of Nature is an American comedy horror film directed by Robbie Pickering. The film was released in a limited release on October 30, 2015,by Columbia Pictures.

In Freaks of Nature we’re welcomed to Dillford, which up until 3 days ago, was peaceful and business as usual: the vampires were at the top of the social order, the zombies were at the bottom, and the humans were getting along in the middle.

We’re introduced to our main character, Dag Parker (Nicholas Braun), who plays for the school baseball team. He’s constantly overshadowed on his team by its star Chaz Mosely, Jr (Chris Zylka), but unluckily for him Dag is cursed with a terrible throw which smacks Chaz Jr directly in the face, causing him to be put in a head brace and ending his athletic career. Continuing Dag’s unlucky streak, he continuously strikes out with his neighbour and the hottest girl in school Lorelei (Vanessa Hudgens), who uses him as a place to stash her weed and someone to talk to.

At Chaz Jr’s home we meet his brother, Ned Mosely (Josh Fadem), who we later learn is Dag’s former best friend that he ditched to be more popular. It’s made clear who the favourite of the family is and Ned storms off to the zombie part of town where he realises how valuable he finds their lack of emotion. Ned makes a rash decision and encourages a zombie to bite him, turning him into one of them.

At school, where vampires are in charge and bully lesser mortals, we meet Petra Lane (Mackenzie Davis) who’s been invited to a vampire party with the school crush, Milan Pinache (Ed Westwick). While alone he encourages Petra to give herself to him, she agrees and readies herself to lose her virginity. Although, Milan has other plans – horrified when he attempts to bite her neck, Petra pulls away. But, Pinache manages to convince her that she’s special and tells her “I’ve been waiting centuries for a girl like you”. Thus, Petra goes through the traumatic experience of becoming an immortal.

After dodging her calls for days, Petra finally catches Milan on the street with another girl. Distraught, she tries to get him to explain why he made her a vampire when he doesn’t even want to be with her. Milan doesn’t give much information besides the fact that he wants to be with Lorelei, which sends Petra into a rage. Unfortunately her strength is no match for his and he slams her onto a car, smashing the windscreen.

Suddenly, a cluster of alien spaceships appear in the sky. This event sparks a breakdown of society with each group blaming the other for the appearance of the aliens, which causes an all-out war with humans vs. vampires vs. zombies.

Thus we enter into a journey with our three main characters – Dag, Petra and Ned – while they try to escape aliens, avoid eating each other by accident and try to figure out what the hell these interplanetary visitors want.

Freaks of Nature pretty much throws you straight into the deep end with no explanation and you’re forced to accept a lot of information very quickly. For starters, vampires, zombies and humans all co-exist together peacefully. They feel so safe that they send their children to school together. I mean, the fact that two mythical beings exist is one thing but them all living in the same town together? Come on. Give us at least a little background as to how that even happened! This film definitely isn’t one you should think about too hard because everything is nonsensical so don’t even bother. In my opinion it gets much better when it’s just our three main protagonists, and in this cliché filled clusterfuck they all do very well with what their given. I have to give them credit for making me laugh; there are many scenes in this film that caused me to chuckle but none more than Chaz Snr’s “death” scene (“Nooooo I came back to life again, why won’t I just die!!”). Overall, the effects are great, the characters are likeable and the premise is enjoyable and unique. It’s a fun and gorey turn-your-brain-off movie. But if there’s one lesson to be learned, it’s that if you’re young and impressionable and a predator takes advantage of you, make sure at the very least he won’t give you a long-lasting STD.