A vain actor, his best friend, and an activist end up at a mutant freak farm run by a mad scientist

Curated by Jason Forrest

Total Runtime: 1:15:41

Freaked (originally titled Hideous Mutant Freekz) is a 1993 American comedy film, directed by Tom Stern and Alex Winter, and written by Stern, Winter and Tim Burns. All three were involved in the short-lived MTV sketch comedy show "The Idiot Box", and Freaked retains the same brand of surrealistic and absurdist humor as seen in the show.

Originally conceived as a low-budget horror film featuring the band Butthole Surfers,^[1] Freaked went through a number of rewrites, eventually developing into a black comedy set within a sideshow, which was picked up by 20th Century Fox for a feature film. After several poor test screenings and a change in studio executives who then found the film too "weird", the movie was pulled from a wide distribution and only played on a handful of screens in the United States.

Production

Hideous Mutant Freekz was conceived around the time Winter and Stern had directed 1988's Bar-B-Que Movie, a short film starring and featuring the music of experimental rock band Butthole Surfers. Winter, Stern and Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes began work on the first draft of the script, envisioning it as an obscene, ultra-violent horror film once again featuring the Butthole Surfers, costing around $100,000.^[1] The idea was, as Alex Winter put it, "Beach Blanket Bingo meets The Evil Dead".^[2] The two fished the script around to various studios for years, but to no avail.

Following the end of production on Stern and Winter's MTV sketch comedy show The Idiot Box, staff writer Tim Burns was recruited to join the two in a number of rewrites. The film was completely revisioned, dropping the aspect of the Butthole Surfers entirely and turning it into a full comedy in the vein of the Monty Python and MAD Magazine-inspired humour that was present in The Idiot Box.^[3]

Winter and Stern pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox. Joe Roth, the head of the studio at that time, loved the idea and offered the two a twelve million dollar deal to direct it, despite the fact that neither of them had any experience directing a major Hollywood film and had never even shot on 35mm film before. The only condition was that the film had to be rewritten and toned down to fit a PG-13 rating; therefore, most of the profanity was written out of the final draft to fit MPAA standards. Within a month of being picked up, the film began production.^[1]

The studio had such high expectations for the film that they released a number of products based on it, including a line of action figures, a novelization and, most notably, a comic book released by Hamilton Comics (however, since the comic was drawn before most of the casting was completed, none of its characters look anything like their real-life counterparts).^[2]

Movie - Freaked (1993)

◀ PREVNEXT ▶ THIS VIDEO: MORE INFO ABOUT THIS SHOW »

Search Tags:

Movie90salex winteralternativebutthole surfersmtv

Our Curators Recommend:

Star Maidens Ep 4 - The Proton Storm

Episode 4 of the great German/UK sci-fi show of the 70s

Movie - Class of 1999, Part 2: The Substitute (1994)

Amazingly titled sequel to a sequel, a rogue android trained to kill, attempts to try less drastic means to teach students

The Network Awesome Show

The Network Awesome Show is a music variety show that captures the creativity of the musicians and artists that drive the scene.

Hungarian Day!

Take a trip to Hungary and discover some of its treasures!

Network Awesome Originals:

Japanese Art-House Cinema

A week of films and shows to help illumanate them

Drive-In Movie Week

Drive in Movies! 5 theme days filled with aliens, A-bombs and adventure!

Fashion Week

Portable.tv presents an entire week of programming about fashion to coincide with London Fashion Week.

DRUG WEEK

A week long investigation into the illicit substances that drive our culture

Previously This Week:

Sat, May 18

Collection - Foods on Film

The French Chef - The Lobster Show

Collection - My Drunk Kitchen

Collection - MUNCHIES

Collection - James Deen Loves Food

Movie - My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Fri, May 17

Collection - Vintage Jeans Commercials

Collection - Comic Sans!

Collection - Logos from Hell...

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Artists

Collection - Future Housing and Cities

Doc - Future By Design: The Venus Project

Thu, May 16

Collection - Dieter Rams

Saul Bass Bell System Logo Redesign Pitch Video

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Unusual Museums

Collection - Psychedelic Advertising

Collection: Memphis Design

The Films Of ... Ray & Charles Eames

Wed, May 15

Art - Les Trois Inventeurs (1980) by Michel Ocelot

Collection - Arne Jacobsen

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Designer Beverages

Doc - Le Corbusier

Talk Show - Milton Glaser

Doc - Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005)

Tue, May 14

Art - The Way Things Go (Fischli & Weiss, 1987)

Collection - Bertone Prototype Cars

Cool Hunting Video Presents: The Designer as Manufacturer

Form, Design, and the City (1962)

Doc - Bauhaus (1975)

Doc - Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (2008)

Mon, May 13

Design Q & A with Charles Eames

Design - American Look (General Motors, 1958)

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Designers

Plastic: A Supplementary Picture (1944)

Doc - The World Of Buckminster Fuller (1974)

Doc - Helvetica (Gary Hustwit, 2007)