Freaky came out on November 13, and it might very well be the last new movie I see in theaters this year. If it is, then my movie-going year went out with a bang. It's a horror-comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, and it was directed by Christopher Landon, the same guy who did the Happy Death Day movies (which makes perfect sense because Happy Death Day is a horror take on Groundhog Day, and this one is a horror take on Freaky Friday).
Vince Vaughn plays a serial killer known as the Blissfield Butcher who tries to kill Kathryn Newton's character, a high school senior named Millie, but he instead causes them to switch bodies. The next morning, Millie wakes up in the Butcher's body and he wakes up in hers, and it's just as hilarious as you would expect.
Vaughn is hands down the best thing about this movie. He does a phenomenal job playing a teenage girl stuck in the body of a middle-aged man, and he's gut-bustingly funny. He changes everything from the tone of his voice to the way he moves, and it's spot-on. There are even times when he has to fawn over the guy Millie has a crush on, and those are some of the most amazingly awkward scenes in the entire movie. Simply put, on the comedy side, Freaky works spectacularly.
On the horror side, the film isn't quite as good, but it still works pretty well. It's a slasher, and it leans into that subgenre more heavily than you might expect. This is a gory film, and it has several hardcore kills that are going to really please slasher fans. Admittedly, this isn't my preferred kind of horror, but even I appreciated how well the movie emulated the classic slashers of the 80s and 90s. Granted, it's not nonstop gore all the time, but when the Blissfield Butcher kills people, he's brutal.
And not just when he's in his original body. After the switch, he continues his murderous ways, and Kathryn Newton does a really good job playing him. She's mastered the sinister look and attitude of a serial killer hiding in someone else's body, so she really makes you believe that she's the Blissfield Butcher.
On a similar note, Freaky is also a love letter to the slasher genre. It makes some really great use of the slasher tropes we all know and love, and it has some cool callbacks to classic slasher movies like Halloween and Scream. Even some of the weapons the killer uses are very reminiscent of the most famous killers the genre has to offer.
All that being said, the movie isn't perfect. For example, as funny as it is, it also has several jokes that fall flat. Luckily, there's almost always a really funny joke soon afterwards that makes up for it, but I did notice a number of bad ones. More than that, though, I'd say that the worst part of this movie is probably the family drama between Millie, her mother, and her sister. Millie's father passed away a year before the events of the film, and her family is still reeling from the loss. The movie tries to make something of this, but it ends up feeling generic and halfhearted. It's not bad enough to really take away from the film, but it doesn't add anything to it either. It's kind of just there as a narrative thread that you notice without caring much about either way.
But those are relatively minor quibbles, so on the whole, I would give Freaky a big thumbs up. It works well on both the comedy and horror fronts, so it gives you pretty much everything you want from it. It's a really fun time at the theater, so if you're itching for a night out or you just want to see something new on the big screen, I'd definitely recommend checking this one out.
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