Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Katie Finneran, Celeste O’Connor, Alan Ruck, Misha Osherovich
Intro:
...an amiable bit of entertaining nonsense with some quality performances.
The problem with body swap movies is that the swap is never all that dramatic. Freaky Friday (2003) has a mother and daughter swapping places to learn the pressures of their respective ages. Yawn. The Change-Up (2011) has very good looking dude, Ryan Reynolds, swap places with slightly older but still very-good-looking dude, Jason Bateman, to juxtapose their mildly different levels of responsibility. Meh. It’s all so bloody vanilla! Well, Freaky is here to add a little spice to the formula, asking: what would happen if a bullied teenage girl swapped places with Jason-fucken-Voorhees?!
Freaky is the twin stories of bullied youngster, Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) and teen-slaughtering man mountain, Barney Calvin Garris aka The Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn). Due to cheerfully goofy circumstances involving a surprisingly gory opening ten minutes, an ancient mystical dagger and some pretty clunky writing, Millie and Barney wake up on the morning of Friday the 13th (heh) in each other’s bodies. It’s a gleefully silly premise and co-writer and director Christopher Landon, who previously gave us the Happy Death Day movies, is clearly having a blast. His energetic direction is ably assisted by a full bodied performance from Vince Vaughn, who embraces his role with admirable gusto and a similarly strong turn from Newton.
Where Freaky lets itself down a little is in the scripting. While the gags work for the most part, there’s a bunch of untapped potential here. Comic riffs and set ups that seem obvious aren’t even attempted, in favour of more hacky, lower hanging fruit and a couple of sequences that drag on way too long. Jason Voorhees analogue Barney Galvin Harris’ backstory in particular is underutilised, which feels like a missed opportunity. Consequently, Freaky is a fine, engaging and often quite funny horror comedy that’s well worth a watch, but falls short of the classics, like Shaun of the Dead (2004) or Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010).
It’s not a masterpiece, and not as assured as Landon’s own Happy Death Day (2017), but if you’re in the mood for a body swap horror comedy that finally adds some grit (and gore) to the premise, Freaky is an amiable bit of entertaining nonsense with some quality performances.
