The film premiered to solid reviews at the Sundance Film Festival over a year ago.

Fun fact: I saw Freaky Tales over a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival. In a fest known mostly for prestigious fare, it was a refreshing change of pace, with it a fast-paced action flick set in Oakland in 1987 that followed four interconnected stories over the course of one violent night. Despite mostly solid reviews, this one has sat on the shelf for a while, but now Lionsgate is giving it a theatrical release on April 4th.

Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, in their follow-up to Captain Marvel, the film stars Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis (Top Gun: Maverick), Ben Mendelsohn, and the late Angus Cloud (Euphoria). As shown by the trailer, this is a fun, fast-paced flick, that tells four inter-connected tales over the course of a single night in Oakland. In the first story, a young man (Avatar: The Way of Water’s Jack Champion) gets involved in a violent punk vs skinhead brawl, while in the second, two aspiring female rappers try to make it. The third and fourth stories take up the majority of the running time, with Pedro Pascal playing an enforcer who tries to go straight in the third, while Jay Ellis plays a basketball player on an ultra-violent revenge mission in the fourth. There’s also a fun, extended cameo that – miraculously – wasn’t given away by the trailer but will no doubt be spoiled before the movie comes out. 

You can read my review (which is quoted in the trailer) HERE, but suffice it to say I had a blast with this one. Pascal is seriously cool playing an anti-hero, while Jay Ellis gets to rack up some major carnage in the movie’s finale, which seems heavily inspired by eighties classics The Last Dragon and Big Trouble in Little China, crossed with a significantly more modern influence, Kill Bill.

Freaky Tales hits theaters on April 4th!