Tom Hanks, Samurai Swords, and Neo-Nazis — Yes, Really!
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a real cult classic. I’m talking about the kind of film that flops at the box office, quietly builds an underground following, then years later becomes essential viewing. The Big Lebowski didn’t make a dent in 1998. Donnie Darko barely registered in 2001. Even No Country for Old Men, released by the Coen brothers at the height of their powers, took time to worm its way into the collective subconscious. Not by force, but by friction, passed hand to hand, quoted in dorm rooms, dissected online, cherished for its many quirks.
That’s what made all of the above special. Not marketing, not algorithms. Rather, memory. They were rediscovered, rewatched, and reinterpreted. Cult classics aren’t born. They’re built. Slowly. Eventually, they became rites of passage.
Which brings us to Freaky Tales, a wild, grime-slicked mosaic of punk fury, revenge bloodbaths, and old-school chaos. Set in a fictionalized 1987 Oakland pulsing with radioactive green energy and plenty of swagger, it’s a film that practically dares you to compare it to Pulp Fiction. With its nonlinear intersecting stories, comic-book violence, and a soundtrack straight out of the boombox in your cool uncle’s garage, it’s hard not to. A mashup of four interwoven stories, Freaky Tales features punks battling skinheads, basketball stars wielding samurai swords, rising rap duos challenging the old guard, and a haunted hitman just trying to go unnoticed. It’s not subtle. That’s because it’s not trying to be.
Like Tarantino at his most daring, Freaky Tales blends real-life references with absurdist fiction. It switches tones on a dime, from grindhouse gore to surreal hip-hop dreamscapes. The characters talk in heightened bursts, the visuals lean into exaggeration, and the whole thing moves with the assurance of a movie that knows it’s not for everyone, and doesn’t care.
It’s a throwback to a time when films had plenty of guts and no shortage of edge. And just when you think you’ve made sense of the madness, in walks Tom Hanks. Yes, that Tom Hanks. He plays a sleazy video-store clerk with a gambling habit and a side hustle hosting poker games. It’s a cameo so unexpected, it feels like the punchline to a joke Hollywood began and forgot to finish. But it works. Somehow, it works. Despite his recent slide into Trump Derangement Syndrome-style moral grandstanding, Hanks reminds us why he was once one of America’s most beloved actors. Here, he’s magnetic even when ridiculous.
Pedro Pascal, meanwhile, turns in a restrained, sorrow-soaked performance in the film’s quietest chapter. He’s no stranger to damaged characters (Narcos, The Last of Us), but here he taps into something deeper. Essentially, the viewer is faced with a man trapped in his own myth, trying to outpace the violence that made him famous. It’s a welcome contrast to the more cartoonish elements surrounding him. Pascal grounds the insanity of it all. He gives it weight. He gives the viewer time to catch their breath.
Freaky Tales is messy. It knows it, and it embraces it. The structure is scattershot, the tone shifts wildly, and the green cosmic lightning that ties everything together is more aesthetic than logical. But that’s part of the charm. That’s part of the fun. The film doesn’t want to be clean or coherent. It wants to be remembered. And in a different era, it might have been.
But here’s the problem. As mentioned, cult classics need to sit in the shadows and be rediscovered by those willing to go to the effort. They require Indiana Jones-like types, people prepared to do the digging. That’s very difficult, if not impossible, in the age of streaming, where content is either a hit in its first week or forgotten forever. The algorithm doesn’t nurture late bloomers. It buries them under new content, new thumbnails, and new innumerable distractions.
Back when people bought DVDs or argued in video stores, a movie could survive by word of mouth. It could grow. Today, sadly, the moment’s gone before you’ve even decided what to watch. There’s no cultural memory, just a constant stream of content. And in that feed, Freaky Tales will likely vanish. Could this have become a cult classic? In a different time, perhaps.
But the true cult classics need obsession. They need time. And that, more than garish green lightning or surprise A-listers, is what Freaky Tales doesn’t have.
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