Following the massive success of The Blair Witch Project, production company Haxan Films kept the found-footage train going with FreakyLinks (originally titled Fearsum). While not everyone recognizes this hidden horror gem of television, those who do might recall its harrowing history. Considered by many to be ahead of its time, FreakyLinks is an entertaining time-capsule of what it was like to be on the weirder side of the internet before the turn of the 21st century.
Prior to its TV debut, FreakyLinks’ developers launched a paranormal-sleuthing website similar to the homespun one seen in the show. Sadly, the internet marketing did not pay off; shortly after premiering on Fox in October of 2000, the series was temporarily taken off the schedule due to low ratings. The network aired more new episodes that following January, yet once again, Fox pulled the plug. After the remaining episodes were burned off in June of 2001, loyal FreakyLinkers were forced to say goodbye. Fox opted to cancel the series altogether, despite the fanbase’s vocal petition to save Derek Barnes and his close crew of novice ghosthunters.
FreakyLinks was, for a short time, the best live-action interpretation of Scooby-Doo! available before an actual adaptation materialized. In place of the Mystery Machine, these young and hip characters used the World Wide Web to find their thrills and seek out creepy material for their online storehouse. Leading the misfits was Derek Barnes (Ethan Embry), the irresponsible but good-natured surfer with a dangerous curiosity for all things strange. His free-spoken confidant, Jason Tatum (Karim Prince), was a law school dropout who preferred boogeymen to briefs. And holding down the fort as the others go off in search of mysteries was the punnily named techie and computer whiz, Lan Williams (Lizette Carrion). Finally, rounding off this varied bunch was psychologist and Adam’s almost fiancée Chloe Tanner (Lisa Sheridan). She too is haunted by Adam, albeit not in the same way as Derek.
The demise of FreakyLinks could be attributed to Fox’s own interference; because the network wanted something more playful than the pilot, original showrunner Tommy Thompson parted ways. Creators Gregg Hale and David S. Goyer (as Ricardo Festiva) stayed on as consultants while former co-executive producer David Simkins was now put in charge. Meddling from the higher-ups does not always bode well, but those who tuned in to the retooled FreakyLinks still responded well, even if the tone of the remaining episodes was admittedly lighter. Most damaging perhaps was the choice to air a series, one aimed at a younger demographic, on Friday nights. The reputation of the “Friday night death slot” is overstated, although in this instance, FreakyLinks could not match the success of its own genre blueprint and a former resident of the same time slot, The X-Files.
Had things gone as originally planned, FreakyLinks would have been a more serious techno-thriller. Thompson’s darker vision can be sensed in the pilot (“Subject: Fearsum”), where the story’s inciting incident involves Derek finding his identical twin brother, Adam (Embry), dead of suicide. Rarely did the series get this heavy again, apart from one filicidal ghost story (“Subject: Threethirteen”). Scrubbing away that grim undercurrent, however, forced the most urgent subplot — Derek wonders if his twin is somehow now alive after receiving CCTV footage of Adam shot after his death — to be abandoned. Another plot thread eventually muted over time was the ever-present Vince Elsing (Dennis Christopher). This occasional ally of Derek would pop up when least expected, delivering cryptic messages about a current case or Adam.
As with Firefly, FreakyLinks aired out of order. So for fans who watched the series during its original broadcast, they might have been confused by events referenced before they even happened. In addition, Chloe initially keeps everything grounded by applying logic to the unexplained. The show’s own Dana Scully. Yet due to the slightly shuffled episode order, Chloe’s degree of natural skepticism toward all things supernatural is inconsistent. More importantly, Chloe’s own overarching story — her psychology license is almost revoked after Derek inadvertently interferes with a patient’s case — is a bit out of whack. Remembering the “lighter popcorn thriller” mandate, though, most episodes are, more or less, self-contained. So the continuity, while indeed in effect, is still loose enough to where anyone can tune in and be brought up to speed without much effort.
What should have been the biggest attraction about FreakyLinks may have actually been off-putting to unprepared or disinterested critics and viewers. Found footage is now ubiquitous, fashionable, and widely-liked, but back in and around 2000, this storytelling technique was still in its infancy. Hand-held horrors and first-person frighteners, as a whole, engage their spectators by practically including them in the story, but this show’s most obvious appeal was lost on anyone who was not already online. And when Derek or someone else pulled out the camera to catch some ghosties or whatnot, or they played a low-quality video dug up off the ‘net, the aesthetic clashed with the traditional presentation. Even in a modern environment where found footage is ever-present in the horror genre, the mixing of styles is uncommon. Nevertheless, FreakyLinks was ahead of the curve, as far as TV found footage goes. Similar to Blair Witch, the actors ended up shooting most of the first-person footage themselves, which also entailed line improvisation.
Toning down nearly everything from the pilot was a risk that, in retrospect, paid off. Yes, it is a shame that the series did not deliver on its initial setup, but for fans of monster-of-the-week storytelling, FreakyLinks is worthwhile. As Derek honors his brother’s legacy by investigating anything bizarre that happens to find its way into his inbox, he and his friends come across a diverse list of things that go bump in the night. From a shadow-dwelling Filipino vampire (“Subject: Me and My Shadow”) to a skunk ape living in a retirement community (“Subject: Sunrise at Sunset Streams”), FreakyLinks makes up for its lack of a primary story. These episodic misadventures in cryptid country or haunted territories are typically stimulating. The show’s clever ability to toy with enduring real-life hoaxes in innovative ways, like the Civil War pteranodon in “Subject: Coelacanth This!”, also helps set it apart from the herd of supernatural series hot on the heels of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Much like its protagonist, FreakyLinks acted spontaneously and was on a long journey to figure itself out. The show did not have a concrete sense of identity; it swiftly exchanged an ongoing internal mythos for a variety of tangible but ultimately standalone mythologies. It was never clear if they were building toward something bigger, or if this casual model could sustain itself for multiple seasons. The fans will always wonder could have been had the series continued.
FreakyLinks has not gone completely unnoticed over the years; cult followers still think fondly of it, and in the same breath, they wish this obscurity would resurface on official physical media, or at least be made available for streaming. The show has been weirdly MIA since the now defunct Chiller network aired reruns. Today, all fans have left now are homemade TV rips scattered throughout cyberspace. Frustrating as that may be, it seems only fitting to relive the exploits of Derek Barnes and his fellow ghostbusters through these low-grade videos acquired from dubious sources.
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