Fantasia Fest 2026: Dance Freak Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff arrive at Fantasia’s Underground section with their directorial debut, Dance Freak. Both being creative collaborators for Wham City, and content creators for Adult Swim, this allowed them the courage to start an Indiegogo campaign that successfully raised over $50,000 for their budget. Resnick, having made multiple shorts for Adult Swim that delve into surrealism and absurdity, audiences should already know what to expect as a vibe. In fairness, any connection to Adult Swim will have you assuming the precise thematic and comedic expectations for such bizarreness.

The film follows an anxiety-filled, hallucinatory dive into Obey’s (Rackleff) gloomy life in a deteriorating town, incorporating black-and-white imagery and exaggerated frustration to emphasize the darkly comedic over-industrialization. Dumped by his girlfriend, Dorty (Megan Koester), who is running for mayor, bullied by his boss Mr. Megaman (Halkias), and terrorized by the town’s eccentric characters – including appearances by Sarah Sherman and Conner O’Malley, Obey is evidently characterized as spineless and pathetic in the eyes of Resnick and Rackleff’s writing. Sympathy for such portrayal is discarded aside, as the duo relentlessly illustrates the wittily pitiful life of Obey, complemented with juxtaposed visual animation gags to reinforce our laughter at this absurd story.

When Obey encounters a mysterious dancing figure – dubbed the Dance Freak, his downward spiral accelerates as the elusive figure torments every person that Obey has ever come across with its electric dancing charm. This magnetism is coupled with a scattered mixture of campy music, and painfully uncomfortable thrusting and grunting in the freak’s uncontrollable grooviness. The latter can be attributed to the skin-crawling sound design in all its comically cringe applications. Intensified by the stuttering, randomized awkwardness behind the dialogue as if everyone’s intrusive thoughts are boiling over, this diabolical combination provides audiences with one of the most cynically entertaining comedies in recent memory. Similar to Fantasia breakout hit Hundreds of Beavers, Resnick & Rackleff’s microbudget works best through over-stylized grayscale imagery, erratic editing, and rapid camera work to skillfully avoid the struggles of such independent cinema looking too obvious to get mainstream viewers invested in it.

In the end, Alan Resnick and Robbie Rackleff’s Dance Freak is a prime example of wry comedy, thanks to their experienced creative work at Adult Swim. Longtime viewers of the network will know immediately what they are getting into with the duo’s deliberately cringey dialogue, absurdist storylines, and surrealist imagery to bring this cynical comedy to life.

still courtesy of Fantasia Festival

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Costa Christoulas

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