Director: Christopher Landon
Writer: Michael Kennedy, Christopher Landon (Screenplay)
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O’Connor, Misha Osherovich, Emily Holder, Nicholas Stargel, Kelly Lamor Wilson
Plot: After swapping bodies with a deranged serial killer, a young girl in high school discovers she has less than 24 hours before the change becomes permanent.
Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Freaky starts when renowned serial killer The Butcher (Vaughn) returns for his latest killing spree, striking down a group of high school students, making off with a new knife in the process. Millie (Newton) a shy high school girl along with her best friends Nyla (O’Connor) and Josh (Osherovich) are dealing with the upcoming homecoming dance, when Millie finds herself waiting for her lift, when the Butcher chases her down, before narrowly escaping his grasp.
The next morning Millie finds herself in the body of the Butcher, while the Butcher is in Millie’s, the two must adapt quickly with Millie needing to get her body back, while the Butcher is looking to continue his killing spree in Millie’s body.
Thoughts on Freaky
Characters – The Butcher is the serial killer that has a reputation of being the tall tales of many of the high school students to tell over a campfire, but now he has returned, hunting killing students, he ends up swapping bodies with his latest victim, the butcher character becomes the teenage girl, continuing the killing spree, with the face of an angel. Millie is the shy high school student that gets bullied on a daily basis, with the most important discussion of the day being whether or not to go to homecoming, she ends up being the latest victim, but finds herself in the body of the Butcher, needing to convince her friends she isn’t the killer. Nyla and Josh are the best friends that need convincing and will help Millie try and solve the problem. We do get to see plenty of high school stereotypes that will make for easy victims.
Performances – Vince Vaughn as the killer is everything you would expect a 6ft5 killer would be, but he doesn’t hit all the levels of comedy he could have on the teenage girl, like many others have in the past. Kathryn Newton as the high school side of things is great, but as the killer, she doesn’t go that well as the killer though. The support cast are fine too, but only playing into the stereotypes they are playing.
Story – The story here follows a serial killer that ends up swapping bodies with his latest victim, with the two needing to adapt to their new lives and rush against time to swap back before the transfer is permanent. The story does bring us a new version of a slasher idea but twisting it into the body swapping genre, which is an original idea and with recent body swapping films in the Jumanji franchise have really clicked. This one doesn’t seem to hit the heights of the imagination behind it, instead falling into the stereotypes of the high school location, without getting the comedy it could, or being as smartly scary as the Scream movies.
Comedy/Horror – The comedy is played into tired stereotypes, while the horror looks for PG splatter, over giving us any suspense behind anything
Settings – The film tries to play into the everyday high school girl location leading up to the big dance over a 24-hour period.
Special Effects – The effects are good when used, usually just for the kills, which are bloodier than you would expect, but not as gory as they could have been.
Scene of the Movie – Proving the point to the friends.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Not knowing where or why The Butcher has started killing again, not background info on the killer and the bad decisions he makes when he could have the fresh start in the new body, loads of holes in the killer’s point of view.
Final Thoughts – Freaky is an incredibly smart idea for a slasher, only it just doesn’t click on the levels you would imagine.
