What if two members of Baltimore’s Wham City Comedy took drugs and time traveled to the lo-fi, experimental underground cinematic heyday of Maya Deren to craft a surreally and absurdly bonkers riff on the Ship of Theseus paradox wherein a sad sack snaps after his girlfriend dumps him because he realizes he cannot escape the self-destructive patterns that have ruled his entire life … not even after he’s been reinvented as a hypnotically gyrating fiend?
The answer is Robby Rackleff (who also writes and edits) and Alan Resnick’s (who also lenses, edits, and provides special effects alongside Eris Deo) Dance Freak. It’s one hundred minutes of pure irreverent nonsense in a gorgeous visual package that utilizes what appears to be old school compositing, direct animation, and trippy transitions to augment some gnarly distortions, repurposed glue guns, and an out-of-body skin suit that’s as much a prison as it is a home.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say those hundred minutes felt like a thousand with the strobing and prolonged gags causing patience to wane. If someone were to nod off, you wouldn’t be missing much during those lapses since there’s rarely anything important going on. Not when the dialogue feels ripped from cringe comedy skits with characters fawning over a political candidate, professing posthumous love for a mentor, and vicariously enjoying someone else’s old game show appearance.
We meet Obie (Rackleff) as he stumbles through a birdhouse hobbyist lesson before racing across town for his date with Dorty (Megan Koester). We learn a bit about his abandonment issues and desire to force joy into his life through the comfort of routine rather than fun via a dream-like collage of memories before seeing how overcome by fear he is upon being cornered by some of this rapidly disintegrating town’s more unsavory characters.
It’s a who’s who of familiar alt-comedy faces whether Bad Prostitute (Jury Duty: Company Retreat‘s Rachel Kaly) and her Upset Man pimp (Never Change!‘s Nate Varrone) or a trio of Salad Boys that includes Saturday Night Live‘s Sarah Sherman. They hassle Obie until he’s even more despondent than before and perfectly primed to endure Dorty’s “let’s still be friends” speech that inexplicably brings the titular Dance Freak (also Rackleff) into the fold.
His moves are mesmerizing. It’s like Elaine Benes if her constantly flailing appendages put you in a trance rather than a state of revulsion. He does it not only because he loves music, but also because the effect makes it easier to kill his prey. Whether it’s the dance itself that melts their insides or a product of him bashing their faces in (depending on you interpretation of on-screen “reality”), this monster’s connection to Obie is unavoidable.
Enter the cops (David Rhodus’ Det. Arsonist and Jamel Johnson’s Det. Gittit), a sympathetic scientist (Sheila Mears’ Dr. Dilly Gorgul, a name you can’t forget since the filmmakers decide to superimpose it onto the proceedings three separate times despite never putting anyone else’s name up), and a belligerent boss (Stavros Halkias’ Megaman) for Obie to contend with and Dance Freak to target. Are they the same person or doppelgängers? Why not both?
Rackleff and Resnick are moving to the beat of their own drum en route to simultaneously homage avant-garde cinema and send it up via farce. Because, while the plot is insane and the characters veritable cartoons, there is a real emotional through line as far as Obie’s journey towards understanding who he is and what he has to offer his loved ones … even if the best thing he can do for them is to erase himself from this world.
But wait. I thought this whole thing was a science experiment gone wrong? You know, parallel dimensions and whatnot (a phrase always hilariously responded to with silence before conversation recommences as though it was never uttered)? Sure, I guess you could buy that. I guess Gorgul might be a key component to the story and not just another piece of the puzzle to help Obie see beyond the “nice guy” persona he so fervently implores others to believe. Why not?
The whole thing was apparently crowdfunded three-and-a-half years ago (the list of names is as disorienting as the film, with some being repeated five times in a row) and shot on a $40,000 budget with twice as many pick-up days as the actual shoot. All that time might not have conjured comprehension, but my goodness it facilitated an awesome aesthetic. Would I watch it again? No. Should you watch it once? As long as you’re prepared to wonder whether you’ve had a stroke.
Dance Freak screened at the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival.