An Unrealized Gem of a Movie

Like everything else that we will remember from the year that was filled with Trumpisms and Coronavirus the year 2020 was especially hard on Hollywood and the movie industry from top to bottom. Hollywood shut down from fear of the Coronavirus spread. Movie theaters like every business got hit with shutdowns and a lack of people willing to risk being there, from fear of the Coronavirus. Movies barely made it to the theaters and those that did make it often had shorter runs with far fewer viewers in attendance. One of those movies that made it to theaters but did not make it far up the box-office rankings, was FREAKY, from the horror folks over at Blumhouse Films.

In the grand tradition of the Freaky Friday body-switching movies, we have another entry into the switch movies. Freaky centers around a teenage girl that has her issues, much like Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohans' Freaky Friday. It's Friday the thirteenth and all hell is breaking loose, only this time there's a twist on the usual body switch. This time, the teenaged girl character, played by Kathryn Newton, is swapped into the body of the Blissfield Butcher.

Like a lot of slasher flicks, this starts out with teenagers drinking, hanging out, and having a good time on February 11th. The kids even comment on how the stories of the Blissfield Butcher change from different events, all of them centering around the dangers of underage debauchery. As with most slasher flicks, the entire entourage of kids from the first sequence are younger, not the most versatile, and doomed to be done in the movie after about a five minute run of ignorance, incompetence, and dangerous curiosity. Poor kids, they always die too young and before getting any or finishing.

In enters Vince Vaughn, the Blissfield Slasher, on his run of terror. A nice mansion, kids partying late at night, tons of sexual energy, and a gratuitous round of death followed up by the pretty blonde in a chase we all know is not going to be the big conclusion to her evening that she envisioned. This time the killer just happens to stumble across a fanciful antique that switches the souls of its' possessors into its' victims. You can see how they set up the big mystery and the switch.

Kathryn Newton plays her role well in the movie as the sweet, albeit a troubled teen, that is kind of stuck under her mothers' thumb after the death of her father. She has a cop sister, working for the small Blissfield police department. Milly is adorably awkward, not especially fitting in well with the local teens, and determined to escape her mediocre life as she gets stood up by her troubled mom one late night after a school event. In comes the Slasher, who attacks the innocent young girl and inadvertently swaps bodies. Milly wakes up the next day, confused by where she is, bewildered by what she looks like, and scared. The slasher, wakes up in his new body, the body of a teenaged girl, and surprisingly, since it's Vince Vaughn, escapes the urge to stand in the mirror examining his new body.

The movie introduces several characters that you'll no doubt take great joy in watching them viciously murdered. We all had a high school bully, teacher, or as one of the characters called him, "dick" character that we can identify with when they are offed. Vaughn and Newton really knock out the fun side of this crazy twist on the body-switching fun as Vaughn connects with Milly's only two friends for help, convincingly acting like a teenage girl or a flamboyant gay man in his fifties. Newton, as the serial killer, brings back the "sexy" as the wallflower teen turns to blue jeans and leather-clad badass.

It isn't artsy, or deep, but as far as the sparse offerings of fun during the pandemic year, this was a joy to watch in the theaters and holds its' magic on digital. Like most of your slasher flicks, the good guys prevail in the end. Or, do they...?

Give it a peak if you are looking for a pure fun, guilty pleasure kind of a watch one night.