Wickedly fun "Freaky" makes body-swap formula fresh again (and bloody)

Freaky (2020)

The body-swap comedy sub-genre has been done to death that it’s crazy to think there has never been a slasher twist on the old formula. Leave it up to director Christopher Landon to think of it first with “Freaky,” a wickedly clever, energetic, and wildly entertaining romp. Just imagine “Freaky Friday,” but with a wine bottle being shoved down a teen’s throat and a body sliced down the middle with a buzzsaw. As Landon made his own darkly comic slasher variation on the time-loop formula behind “Groundhog Day” with 2017’s “Happy Death Day” (and, if we’re getting technical, “Back to the Future Part II” with 2019’s “Happy Death Day 2U”), he does it again, making a high-concept premise fresh again with twisted inspiration and just enough bite. “Freaky” is loads of fun made with a mischievous grin.

Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) is a timid high school girl, struggling with a crush on a boy she insists doesn’t notice her and putting up with a mean girl's petty insults and a teacher who seems to be out to get her. She also has to be the selfless rock to her mother (Katie Finneran) and older cop sister (Dana Drori) after the loss of her father a year ago. When her little town of Blissfield becomes a hunting ground for the notorious Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), Millie becomes the next victim when she’s left alone after the homecoming game. However, instead of Millie dying, the dagger the Butcher uses is actually an ancient, mystical Aztec artifact that switches their souls. It’s not until midnight, Friday the 13th, that the swap is made, and in the morning, the Butcher wakes up in Millie’s body and Millie wakes up in the butcher’s lair, strewn with dead animal carcasses. For the Butcher, this is great because no one will suspect a teenage girl continuing his murder spree. For Millie, she can now use her strength and height to her advantage but will somehow have to convince her two best friends that it’s actually her inside the towering, conspicuous serial killer’s body. And, if Millie doesn’t find that dagger in 24 hours, both souls will remain in the other’s body forever. 

Tipping its hat to “Friday the 13th” and “Scream,” “Freaky” opens with a classic setup—randy teens in a parent-free mansion discussing a local legend, only to become the victims of said legend—and a succession of brutal kills cheekily improvised with tennis racquets and toilet seats. It’s a tensely crafted, gleefully gory blast of a cold open, and from there, Christopher Landon maintains a lightning pace and a light touch with his nimble tonal swaps between the comedy and the carnage. Without getting bogged down in a lot of needless exposition on the ancient dagger that creates the swap, writer-director Landon and co-writer Michael Kennedy shrewdly zip through the mythical mumbo jumbo, forcing the viewer to just accept it. There is more than enough material to mine with a serial killer trading bodies with a high school girl, and Landon sure-handedly, if not always to the fullest, finds sly humor in the scenario as well as the more obvious physical discoveries. Yes, there are penis jokes—contextual, of course—but Landon is careful not to solely depend on them or push too hard in a cheap, juvenile direction.

For a gender-bending, body-swap situation to really work, the two characters need to have starkly contrasting personalities and lives, and the performers involved with the switcheroo have to be up to the task. That is the case with Millie and the Blissfield Butcher, and Kathryn Newton (2018's "Blockers") and Vince Vaughn are both committed. As Millie, Newton is instantly likable and emotionally true, and as the Blissfield Butcher, Newton gets to have the time of her life and the chance to stretch a little as a dead-eyed killer in a teenage girl’s clothing. Rob Schneider did it in “The Hot Chick” and Jack Black had his turn in “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” and now Vince Vaughn gets the comic opportunity to get in touch with his inner teenage girl. Vaughn gets to play two sides, one as a hulking, menacing serial killer and the other as Millie, and he’s all-in for both. Vaughn can sell a glaring mug to be believable as a bloodthirsty psychopath, and without overdoing the feminine mannerisms and nervous nail-biting, he does the same with pretending to be a petite teenage wallflower who can be sensitive and nervously excited about kissing the boy of her dreams. 

The leads are joined by some charismatic standouts, including Misha Osherovich (2019’s “The Goldfinch”) and Celeste O’Connor (2020’s “Selah and the Spades”), who inject so much endearing, sharp-tongued personality into their roles as Millie’s best friends Josh and Nyla. They are self-aware, too, as one of them notes things don't bode well for gay and Black characters in horror movies. Uriah Shelton nicely subverts the jock type as Millie’s crush Booker, and Katie Finneran also gets a little time to wring out a few touching moments as Millie’s widowed mother, who’s been leaning on bottles of Chardonnay for support. It’s also great to see Alan Ruck back to high school playing a cruel woodshop teacher who gets his comeuppance. 

Again, Christopher Landon specializes in seasoning tired formulas and bringing a frisky bit of levity to his horror movies (2015’s “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” is also a good time that didn’t get the attention it deserved). While they aren’t necessarily scary—and that doesn’t seem to be their aim—he does know how to weave steady tension through atmospheric lensing and timed jump scares with a wink to the audience that he knows we know it’s coming. The climax, set in an indoor haunted-house golf course that doubles for a slaughterhouse of rapey jocks and a showdown, is also a visually candy-colored touch. With the freedom of an R-rating, Landon certainly makes up for the lack of blood in his previous horror-comedies this time by really letting the red stuff spatter and the gore get squishy. It also seems like he just wanted to kill off a character in a cryotherapy chamber because, of course, there would be one in the locker room of a small-town high school. For more comparisons between “Freaky” and the “Happy Death Day” movies, Landon seems to have a blast coming up with school mascots (meet the Blissfield Valley High Beavers!). What is also another story about a young woman dealing with the loss of a parent and the possible loss of herself, it can be a little clunky and surface-level when it tries to be tender. Though as a conceptually inventive body-swap slasher, “Freaky” has fun embracing and subverting genre tropes, while infecting an audience with the bouncy enthusiasm shared by its makers. 

Grade: B

Universal Pictures is releasing “Freaky” (101 min.) in theaters November 13, 2020 and then to VOD December 1, 2020.