Fantasia 2026: ‘Dance Freak’ Review
A small-town mayoral race gets slightly distracted when a dancing man appears on the streets of a dilapidated city overrun by those living on the fringes of society. It’s a place begging for change, and this “Dance Freak” (played by Robby Rackleff) might be the violent force of nature needed to wake everyone up. His presence is both hypnotizing and threatening. There’s an abrasive, unsettling quality to Robby Rackleff and Alan Resnick’s audacious feature directorial debut, Dance Freak. An audiovisual experience as much as it is a commentary on the collapse of societal values, Dance Freak wants you to feel uncomfortable and shaken by its gonzo energy. A singular vision of absurdist proportions, Rackleff and Resnick find a comfortable middle ground between unnerving and hilarious that may outstay its welcome but is constantly vying for your attention.
The abrasiveness is what makes Dance Freak’s social commentaries far more potent. It’s not just in the chaos that dancing seems to bring to a town seemingly on the edge of collapse, but in how the violent gestures seem to confront and offend the violent malaise living within all of its citizens. No one seems to care that Dorty’s (Megan Koester) mayoral campaign is punctuated by the image of her wielding a club emblazoned with “Vote Dorty” on it—which she brings everywhere she goes. In fact, they’re emboldened by it. Her campaign is run completely on the notion that “This town sucks” and everyone in town is willing to harm anyone for her. This includes her milquetoast boyfriend, Obie (also played by Rackleff), who is introduced to the audience at a birdhouse building workshop failing to build one himself, then almost gets scammed by a prostitute and her pimp, and is then accosted when walking through Salad Boys territory (one of which is played by SNL star Sarah Sherman).
Obie is having a hard enough time dealing with his own overwhelming loneliness that his world starts coming apart when the Dance Freak appears and literally punches him into next week. His appearance is identical to Obie's, but his demeanour is a torrent of fury and unrest. Erratic movements backed by pulsating electronic music, he is everything Obie is not. All of this occurs within the first 10 minutes of the film and sets the tone for a violent and absurdist mash-up of Eraserhead and Footloose. It’s as weird as that sounds, and it only gets weirder as the film delves into its mystery after Obie is fired from his job by his boss, Mr. Megaman (Stavros Halkias). His uncanny resemblance to the Dance Freak, and the irreparable damage his dancing seems to be doing to his life and everyone around him, compel Obie to investigate further alongside Dorty and scientist Dr. Dilly Gorgul (Sheila Mears, who is unequivocally the best part of every scene she’s in). The film hearkens back to some B-movie science fiction while still retaining this larger mystery around its titular character.
Dance Freak is packed with alternative comedians who have been quickly taking over the comedy landscape in the past few years. Sherman and Halkias are undeniably the bigger stars mentioned so far, but Conner O’Malley also gets a brief but iconic scene thanks to how easily his frenetic energy meshes with Rackleff and Resnick’s vision. Jamel Johnson’s role as Detective Gittit also instantly makes the procedural elements of the film work better. As mentioned, Mears is hilarious at every turn, and the scenes she shares with Koester are some of the best in the film. Rackleff’s dual performance is about as didactic as they come, complementing the monochromatic photography. Nate Varrone and Rachel Kaly can be found in O’Malley’s underseen Rap World, but here they play off each other exceptionally well in an early funny scene that is exalted by Resnick’s cinematography, which captures the intensity of the moment with kinetic movement. There’s not a bad apple in the bunch, but what Rackleff and Resnick do well is provide a canvas for each actor to demonstrate their comedic prowess and physical presence in a scene.
With that said, Dance Freak is the kind of Adult Swim-adjacent comedy that can be extremely funny, but also stretched too far past its limits. Resnick’s screenplay suffers from being a little too long for what it is. At 100 minutes, the joke wears thin, and the film has to keep going deeper and deeper into its science fiction premise to find some laughs; by the end, it loses a bit of its edge from overstaying its welcome. The violence that follows in the wake of the Dance Freak’s gyrating pushes the film to some intentionally uncomfortable extremes that it could do more with, but it often devolves into cracking a half-baked joke to keep the film toeing the line between provocative and surreal. The chaos of the Dance Freak cannot be contained, but the structure of the film is arguably a little too formulaic to really make that chaos felt.
As a showcase for its stars, Dance Freak is a tremendous collection of scenes that vary greatly in quality. The stitching that binds them is familiar and well-worn, which makes the eccentric premise not as unwieldy as it might seem. However, Rackleff and Resnick do wonders with their production design, moments of vulnerability between characters, and audiovisual experience that Dance Freak will undoubtedly find a welcoming audience. While it feels stretched a bit past its breaking point, there’s no denying the instantly iconic Dance Freak as a truly memorable character. When the film works, it’s tremendously funny and disquieting like some of the best cringe and surrealist comedies. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t go out with the same fizzling energy.
The 30th Fantasia International Film Festival takes place between July 16th and August 2nd. Dance Freak celebrated its Canadian premiere on July 17th as Fantasia’s Underground program. The full list of films selected for the festival can be found here.
