FREAKY (2020)

Directed By: Christopher Landon  Written By: Christopher Landon & Michael Kennedy  Cinematography: Laurie Rose Editor: Ben Baudhuin 

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O’Connor, Misha Osherovich, Emily Holder, Nicholas Stargal, Katie Finnaren, Dana Drori, Mitchell Hoog, Melissa Cellazo 

After swapping bodies with a deranged serial killer, a young girl in high school discovers she has less than 24 hours before the change becomes permanent.

This is my type of film and comes from writer-director Christopher Landon. One knows what to expect: a high concept idea that was prominent in 1980’s/1990’s films only here put into the horror genre.

It comes out entertaining but not as much as one would have hoped. The film is perfectly entertaining. Yet even with the violence and gore. You never quite take it seriously or worry.

Half the time it is done with fun. While also giving the moral of respecting people’s titles, labels, and character and trying to define them as just one thing.

While the kills are somewhat creative. The way in which they switch bodies seems a little hokey. It’s needed for the audience to understand but kind of takes the audience out of the film. It offers a ridiculous plot device and provides comedy for this film, but as the film doesn’t live up to the campy and cheesy nature of that plot point it kind of shines a spotlight on it as a weakness.

What shines through the most here is surprisingly Vince Vaughn who could have let his performance be Purely comedic but he plays menacing, heartfelt, girlish, and comedic believably. In both his killer performance and his performance with his body being inhabited by a teenage girl. 

It’s also nice for a film to actually have a sex scene that is not graphic but plays into the genre and manages to have no nudity.

You can tell early on who the film is setting up to be victims and when it has a chance it resists twists that one might expect. It even manages to have 2 endings where the film could have ended and still been perfectly fine but needed that extra one to give the character more closure and achieve eye goal as well as have a typical horror ending.

This is a horror-comedy that offers some fun and different aspects but in the end, sticks to the rules and script of the familiar. Though it is definitely worth watching. 

Grade: C+