'Freak' (1999) – Tyler Tharpe.

Writer/director Tyler Tharpe's noble attempt at fashioning an earnest, extremely low-budget shocker, while somewhat flawed, is executed with a certain amount of skill. Rarely mentioned, I would say that the film's obscurity is not due to poor film-making, as Tharpe's 'Freak', while suitably ugly, is professionally mounted, and the zesty performances are credible enough, with especially sympathetic work from the likeable Amy Paliganoff, who energetically makes for an emotionally engaging Final Girl, one horribly beleaguered by the sinister shenanigans of this demented wretch! Staci (Amy Paliganoff) & younger sister Jodie (Andrea Johnson) have their lengthy road trip crudely interrupted by the violent terror tactics of a recently escaped mental patient, a menacingly mute, bloodily bandaged freak on a seemingly arbitrary cross-county rampage!

'Freak' is not an undiscovered nil-budgeted B-Horror classic, and no super entertaining, crud-packed trash-fest, but a stolid, competently made, if curiously bloodless B-slasher that proved edifying even with the pointed absence of gratuitous gore. Perhaps not for everyone, but the film has an oppressive, palpably bleak, off-beat atmosphere that greatly appealed to me, and the starkly abusive scene between the crippled boy 'Freak', and his bovine, plainly psychotic mother eerily recalled Fat Ethel in cult Grindhouse classic 'Criminally Insane' (1975)! In 99% of modern horror films I am more than happy to see the persistently plastic, self-absorbed phone-drone'd protagonists die, but I was definitely rootin' for Staci, Jodi, and her funky ferret 'Slider'! Right on!!!!!!!

'While this 'Freak' aint unique, it still might be worth a phooken peek!' - Weirdlingwolf.