Freaky (2020)

Blumhouse Productions has a mixed history with me.  So when I popped Freaky into my Blu-Ray player, I was hoping for the best.  After all, it was directed and co-written by Christopher Landon, who directed Happy Death Day, which I loved.  But than, he also wrote and directed Happy Death Day 2U, a film that made me wonder why I kept watching past the first act.  And while Freaky isn't a such a disaster, it just wasn't that memorable. 

The movie opens with four disposable teens talking about the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), the local serial killer, who happens to break into the house and murder them.  On his way out, he decides to add theft to his rap sheet by stealing an ancient dagger.  I guess because it looks nice.

The next day, we're introduced to bullied high school student Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton), who's the school mascot at the homecoming football game.  Her mother passed out drunk, she is sitting on a bench at the school long after everyone left when the Butcher shows up and marks her as his next victim.  Despite her best efforts, Millie is captured and stabbed in the shoulder by the Butcher with is new knife, which causes an identical wound on him.  Millie's older sister Char (Dana Drori), a police officer, arrives and chases the Butcher away.

Okay, I'm sitting on a bench in the middle of the night with no one around.

What could go wrong?  Oh, wait, I'm in a Blumhouse film!

But now we go into Freaky Friday territory, as Millie and the Butcher have swapped bodies.  As Millie, the Butcher gives her a make-over (don't ask me how), turning her into a desirable hottie to the jocks that bullied her before.  After killing a few people at the school, the Butcher realizes his new look would make him the least likely suspect, and plans his next killing spree.

Maybe he watched some YouTube tutorials.

Or the script decided you wouldn't question this transformation.  That's why I'm here.

Millie, in the Butcher's body, is able to convince her BFF Nyla (Celeste O'Conner) and her gay besttie Josh (Misha Osherovich) of the body switch.  Nyla and Josh research the dagger and discover that Millie must stab the Butcher with it by midnight, or else the switch will be permanent.

Later, the Butcher attempts to kill Millie's secret crush Booker (Uriah Shelton), but the trio arrive in time to save him and incapacitate the killer.  Millie convinces Booker of the body swap by reciting a poem she anonymously wrote him weeks ago.

Okay, I have to say this, the ease that Millie convinced her friends and Booker of who she is, stuck in the body of a hulking serial killer, seems a bit too easy.  I know she's saying things only Millie would know, but if someone I knew was trying to convince me she's stuck in the body of a serial killer, I'd need a bit more to believe her story than a secret handshake and poem.  A scene of Nyla and Josh discussing if it really was Millie would have been a nice touch.  Doubting friends are always a plus in scripts like this.

Come on, you have to believe it's really me, Millie.

It's in the script!

Anyway, Millie, Nyla and Booker go to retrieve the knife from the police evidence locker (which is ridiculously easy, but whatever), the Butcher heads to the old mill, which is the site of the new homecoming party and, as expected, mayhem ensues.

The cast is fine.  Vaughn has a lot of fun playing a teenage girl trapped in an adult male's body, and O'Conner and Osherovich are great as Millie's friends.  Newton is good, but isn't given much to do other than glare menacingly and take out victims.  Based on what she did in a limited role during most of the film, I really think she deserved better.

Please tell me I get to do more in the Ant-Man and the Wasp sequel than hold a knife and look scary.

 I suspect most horror fans know how this film will end, but if not, skip the next two paragraphs.  And go watch a few more horror films.

 

 

Speaking of those victims, all of them deserve to die, which lessens the threat of the Butcher while he's in Millie's body.  I know the rules of a slasher film, and those who deserve to die usually do.  But it doesn't work in this film.  Sure, it sounds heartless, but I think the script needed a few innocent victims, which would up the stakes and painted targets on Millie's friends.  Yeah, they aren't going to die, but it would have added some tension.  Also, having the Butcher murder those who wronged Millie lessens any impact, as it's not her slicing and dicing, and it leaves Millie guilt free at the end of the movie.  Finally, as no one lives to see Millie kill her victims, other than her friends, it lessens the tension of how Millie could regain her body and not face several murder charges.

 I'm just a girl who's intentions are good....

Yeah, right!

My biggest complaint is the script.  Landon tries to mimic the growth of Millie to that of Tree in Happy Death Day, but fails to deliver any payoff.  Sure, Millie tells Booker that being in the Butcher's body has given her a new sense of confidence, but the movie ends before we can see such a transformation take place.  Adding to the problem is after the first act, all we see of Millie is in the Butcher's body until the final few moments of the film.  Any growth Millie experienced is negated and becomes another example of telling, not showing, and it makes the final scene less satisfying.

End of spoilers.

As for the deaths, they are gory, earning the film a R-rating.  But the gory moments are brief and pretty tame for a slasher film, and, even worse, don't add anything to the story.  Okay, I know slasher films are about the kills, but as I mentioned earlier, this film tries to be more than a simple slasher.  It could have easily earned, and worked as, a PG-13 film, but I suspect the filmmakers knew they had a middling script on their hands and decided to up the gore to compensate for it.

Yeah, you know that's not going to end well.

Freaky is an okay film to check out if it shows up on your streaming service and you're looking for an okay time-waster on a cold, rainy Northwest day.  It won't annoy you, like watching Fantasy Island, but Landon and co-writer Michael Kennedy fail to infuse the script with any sense of character growth or payoff.  While the film didn't make me wonder why I bothered wasting almost two hours of my life watching it, it shows that Blumhouse needs to focus on making better projects if they want to be the modern House of Horror Films.

I need your body back for the sequel.

You do want a sequel, right?

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