Saturday, February 16, 2019

FREEWAY 2: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICKBABY (1999) ** ½


Matthew Bright’s wild Freeway played like a crazy modernized version of Little Red Riding Hood.  This one is more like Hansel and Gretel.  It’s not as consistently entertaining as the original, but it still has that same batshit insane DNA running through its veins.  

White Girl (Natasha Lyonne) and her serial killer cellmate Cyclona (Maria Celedonio) escape from juvie and head to Mexico.  Along the way, Cyclona goes off her meds and kills a bunch of people.  They’re kind of like Hansel and Gretel, only instead of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, they leave a trail of crack.  Some crackheads come along and steal the crack rocks and our heroines wind up getting lost in the woods.  Eventually they wind up in Tijuana where they meet the nun (Vincent Gallo) who raised Cyclona.  The girls realize all too late that the sister is actually a demented cannibal pedophile.

Bright only made a handful of films, which is unfortunate because every one of them I have seen has been unique, unpredictable, and kinda crazy.  Even this one, which isn’t exactly great has its moments of inspired weirdness.  (The first twenty minutes has more scenes of bulimic girls puking than you can shake a stick at.)  It’s not a patch on the original, but there’s enough craziness here to make me kind of wish Bright made another sequel.  

Gallo turns in one of his weirdest performances.  He dials his trademark arrogant persona way down, which sort of works against him.  It’s certainly something to see, but his half of the movie is easily the weakest.  It’s definitely more fun when Lyonne and Celedonio are on the run.  The supporting cast, which include David Alan Grier as Lyonne’s lawyer and John Landis as an incredulous judge are a lot of fun though.

Fun Fact #1:  According to IMDb, this was originally going to be directed by Doris Wishman, which would’ve been… something.

Fun Fact #2:  George Erschbamer, director of the Snake Eater trilogy, was the second unit director. 

AKA:  Freeway 2:  Highway to Hell.  AKA:  Trickbaby (Freeway 2).

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