Vince Vaughn is at his most Vince Vaughn in Freaky, a horror/comedy reimagination of Freaky Friday.
What happens when you take a 1970s Disney film, take every ’80s horror movie trope and blend it with ’90s style humor and drizzle in Vince Vaughn for added flavoring and you get Universal Pictures Freaky.
The movie follows Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton), a shy frumpy girl who lost her father a year ago that tries to be there as much as she can for her mourning mother played by Katie Finneran. Millie is bullied at school and on one chance night following the home coming football game the bloodthirsty Blissfield Butcher (Vaughn) has killed again, taking an bewitched Aztec sacrificial dagger and attempts to kill Millie after having taken the lives of four other teenagers.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) Millie survives and their souls are switched where frumpy Millie turns into the Blissfield Butcher and vice versa. The town is now after Millie in the unmistakably identifiable 6’5″ Vaughn, while the local serial killer takes out all of Millie’s enemies in entertaining fashion, almost making you cheer for him in what Millie herself couldn’t do on her own.
Monster Millie convinces her friends Nyla (Celeste O’Connor), and ’90s gay stereotype Joshua (Misha Osherovich), along with her crush Booker (Uriah Shelton) that Hot Millie is really The Blissfield Butcher and Monster Millie is really their mild mannered friend that they all know and love…AND THAT’S WHERE THE MAGIC IS MADE!
Freaky is well aware of every trope it hits and it punches them hard, yet in an enjoyable way. Granted, the movie, like the original Freaky Friday takes about 30 minutes to warm up, but once it gets going and the body swap happens, that’s when the film finally gets interesting.
Vince Vaughn has kind of become a caricature of his breakout role of Trent in Swingers, but to be fair no one else can do what he does and that’s what make this movie so enjoyable. Newton is great in her double role as well from frumpster to serial killer in finding her way. One joke goes a little further than I would have liked (no spoiler) but it still was quite laughable.
Freaky is definitely the popcorn movie we all need right now, especially with a killer (pun intended) soundtrack.
Freaky comes to theaters on Friday the 13th of November, which is quite apropos.
- Overall Score
Summary
Freaky is a fun horror/comedy that doesn’t try to hide what it is nor does it try to insult the audiences intelligence. It is the movie that you never knew you wanted, but need in your life heading into the Holiday Season.
