Review | Freaky movie review: horror comedy by Happy Death Day director sees Kathryn Newton, Vince Vaughn swap bodies
- A timid teen suffers an identity crisis when she becomes trapped in the body of a serial killer, and vice versa, after he stabs her with a magical dagger
- While Freaky lacks the assured swagger of Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day, it does prove consistently provocative, hilarious, and outrageously grotesque
3/5 stars
Originally pitched as Freaky Friday the 13th, Christopher Landon’s follow-up to his hugely successful Happy Death Day series is a spirited school slasher/body-swap comedy, featuring lashings of gore and a keenly progressive queer streak.
Kathryn Newton takes the lead as Millie, a timid and bullied teen who suffers an identity crisis of cataclysmic proportions when she becomes trapped in the hulking body of Vince Vaughn’s serial killer, and vice versa, after he inadvertently stabs her with a magical Aztec dagger.
Possessed by the Blissfield Butcher, a mass murderer of mythic proportions who terrorises her town every year, Millie proceeds to carve a swathe of bloody vengeance through the normally sleepy suburbs. Meanwhile, she must convince her friends and family that she isn’t the monstrous psychopath standing before them, but really needs their help to repeat the ritual within the next 24 hours, or else the transformation will become permanent.
Landon’s high-camp collision of beloved teen movie genres indulges all the classic body-swap tropes, as both characters explore the pros and cons of being the opposite sex, and scores a few moments of genuine insight amid the inevitable scatological gags.
Freaky is also the latest in a surge of queer horror films, following the likes of Jennifer’s Body, The Neon Demon, Raw and The Perfection in increasing LGBT representation by featuring a number of openly gay or sexually ambiguous characters, in much the same way Black Panther and Get Out diversified heroic ethnicities on-screen.