After being stabbed with a magical dagger, teenager Millie (Kathryn Newton) finds herself in the body of her attacker, the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn).
With the town on the lookout for her, Millie has to find the Butcher before he massacres the rest of her class.
A horror spin on Freaky Friday, Freaky was high on my very short list of new movies I was looking forward to. Leaving the movie, I was somewhat disappointed.
The opening scene is a great parody of slasher tropes, from the stylised title card (‘Wednesday the 11th’), to the caricatured performances of horny teens. It was so OTT that I thought it was a scene from a movie-within-the-movie.
It’s funny but in a one-joke kind of way - which winds top being a big problem because it throws the movie off in terms of tone.
The movie takes place in a heightened reality where people both confirm to types, while being aware of being those tropes. There is something shallow and ephemeral about this approach to the material, particularly when the movie wants us to believe in the emotional reality of our heroine’s dilemma.
Instead, it comes across as a another hackneyed convention to be trotted out when the story demands it. There is a clumsiness to the film’s balancing act between its comic and horror elements that cancels out both.
It does not help that it is most important component - the performances of the two leads - never sync.While Kathryn Newton manages to replicate the Butcher’s quiet menace, Vince Vaughn’s performance never convinces as being of a piece with Newton’s portrayal of Millie.
Vaughn’s broader affectations feel more attuned for a full-on comedy, and feel somewhat out of step with the movie’s tone.
Freaky was made by Christopher Landon, the director of Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U. It is clearly intended as a spiritual sequel to those movies, taking a familiar comic premise and turning it into a horror movie. Compared with Happy Death Day, Freaky comes off as a tad simple and too silly.
Unlike the Happy Death Days, it also lacks a strongly defined lead character like Jessica Rothe's Tree. It might be an effect of the clash between the leads' performances, but I could not get a firm read on Millie's character.
This movie might improve on re-watch, but on this initial viewing, Freaky feels like a skit extended to a feature runtime.
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