Get Your Freak On

The movie Happy Death Day was both better than you might expect and financially successful. This led not only to a sequel, but to attempts to twist the formula of retelling non-horror plots in the horror genre. Freaky is one such movie (from the same director even!). Starring Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, Freaky makes a horror movie out of the "body swap comedy" genre. A brutal serial killer and the high school girl who was his intended victim swap bodies, and hilarity ensues.

I suppose I'd say that Freaky is not quite as good as Happy Death Day, but there isn't really a need to make too direct a comparison (and it's only by a small degree in any case). Freaky is still quite clever -- not just interested in touching on fun tropes in both movie genres, but in actually exploring how the two main characters would behave in the wild situation. There's good horror to be found in "what would a murderous psychopath do with more perfect camouflage?" and great humor to be found in the other side of the swap.

Freaky leans into the comedy hard enough, in fact, that I could almost imagine someone enjoying it only as a fan of movies like Freaky Friday, 18 Again, The Change-Up, and so forth. (Almost. It's pretty gory.) Vince Vaughn seems to be having a ball playing the very girly character of Millie inside the body of "the Blissfield Butcher." (Yes, the town is named Blissfield. I think that tells you right away how serious the movie is overall.) Meanwhile, Kathryn Newton is really quite good at playing the cold-blooded killer -- more believable in that role, in fact, than she is at the start of the movie as the bubbly teen.

I can't really go on at length about this movie, because it is a pretty straightforward "high concept" idea that needs little explanation. And of course, it's not high art that affords plenty of opportunities to discuss what it does well. Yet... it does a lot of things well! It's a fun movie worth watching as we start to roll up on Halloween season. If the premise sounds to you like a movie you'd like, chances are very high that your expectations will be satisfied. I give Freaky a B.