he world is waiting to hear your story.” Opening with psychedelic main title graphics to match the coming contents, former child star Ricky Coogin (Alex Winter) headlines The Skye Daley Show (with Brooke Shields as Skye Daley), where he finally reveals himself after a hideous transformation – a horrific ordeal that began when he was approached by the Everything Except Shoes corporation to promote their brand. $5 million is what it’ll take to get Ricky to become a toxic chemicals spokesman (for fertilizer Zygrot-24). And so he’s off to Santa Flan with pal Ernie (Michael Stoyanov), where he’ll meet eco-activist Julie (Megan Ward), and wander into Elijah C. Skuggs’ (Randy Quaid) Freek Land and Mutant Emporium sideshow, to see a wealth of misshapen human oddities.

Unfolding in a mile-a-minute fashion, with a hyperactive sketch comedy vibe, Winter really hams it up (he co-wrote and co-directed as well) as this deeply – and outwardly – satirical knee-slapper soon finds the lead trio becoming the latest test subjects for a mad scientist. And Zygrot-24 is the secret ingredient. “Who wants to get freaked first?”

Brimming with non-sequiturs, random asides, nonsensical flashbacks, breaking of the fourth wall, and off-color jokes, “Freaked” is routinely hilarious as it employs overacting caricatures of rejects from “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” Ricky joins a cadre of mutants with outrageous makeup and prosthetics, including an oversized worm (Derek McGrath), a half-man/half-cow creature called Cowboy (John Hawkes), a man with an enormous nose for a head (Jeff Kahn), a sock puppet person (Bobcat Goldthwait), a bearded lady (Mr. T), and more, each exhibiting sensational makeup effects and animatronics with slime and goop, courtesy of the legendary Screaming Mad George. The visuals are the film’s most memorable aspect – alongside just how head-spinningly fast the action and dialogue are. Watching “Freaked” will make audiences feel as if on some sort of drug.

“You’re ugly enough to burn the nose hairs off a dead nun!” The picture also utilizes claymation, slapstick (and other physical comedy), interruptive commercials, ridiculous costuming, and absurd dialogue, playing out as if a live-action cartoon or comic strip (with a hint of Monty Python). It all feels as if a surreal product of MTV (indeed, the creators were part of “The Idiot Box” for that network), embracing pop culture humor while lampooning topical subjects like fame, corporate greed, human productivity (and human nature), consumer behavior, and environmental woes – and the teamwork of “The Great Escape” (all components of which would be comparably utilized, stylized, and mocked in “Cabin Boy” a year later). It’s goofy, grotesque, monstrous, over-the-top, inexplicably weird, and incredibly original. In many ways, it borrows sensibilities from Tim Burton and Nickelodeon’s goo-dousing game shows (as well as the body horror of Verhoeven and Cronenberg, but with a humorous twist), creating a tremendously singular horror/comedy hybrid. It’s short, well-paced (breakneck, actually, and perhaps so quick that many of its ideas don’t feel fleshed-out), ludicrous, visually extraordinary, and tremendously entertaining – a total mind-trip of a movie (and one that is now beyond obscure, as even its theatrical run was cut short from negative test-screening feedback). “Now you’re just being silly.”

– Mike Massie