By Stephanie Arenas
Director Christopher Landon created an interesting twist inspired by the likes of “Freaky Friday” in his new film “Freaky.”
The film revolves around a 17-year-old girl named Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) who switches bodies with the town’s serial killer known as the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn).
While an interesting idea, the movie has many problems throughout.
In the beginning, we meet Kessler’s best friends Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich). Although both characters are thoroughly enjoyable, it seems the writers wanted to perpetuate major stereotypes on Josh.
Josh is a flamboyant gay man who often dreams of getting together with straight men. Despite the cast’s diversity, stereotypes such as these harm the LGBTQ+ community more than they help it.
Another flaw in regard to the film involves the character switch itself.
Before Kessler switches bodies with the Blissfield Butcher, she is shy and an overall depressing person to be around. However, that character trait is immediately thrown out the door once she is in the Blissfield Butcher’s body.
Suddenly, she is outgoing, confident and bold — very out of character from what she was portraying before.
Speaking of the body switch, the reason why Kessler switches bodies in the first place is because she is attacked by the Blissfield Butcher with a magic dagger.
She finds herself into this situation when her mother forgets to pick her up from school after consuming a ton of alcohol.
It seems like the movie was heading in a direction in which the mother’s alcoholism gets in the way of everything. But this issue is never brought up again after this incident, which leads you to wonder: Why did the writers add this?
The movie is marketed as a “comedy/slasher film,” yet the actual slasher scenes are quite boring and predictable. The characters who are killed off are so annoying that it was actually satisfying to see them die.
However, the kills in the movie do not even matter to the plot. At one point, Kessler, in the Blissfield Butcher’s body, sees one of her classmate’s dead body and is horrified. But in the next scene, she acts as if nothing had happened at all, not even mentioning it to her friends.
It seems that this film has a common theme of bringing an important issue up and then never mentioning it again.
Vaughn is definitely the star of the film. His character has amazing chemistry with both Nyla and Josh, and he passionately plays the role of Kessler after the body switch.
The scenes where the trio are getting themselves into wacky hijinks are the best parts of the film, as it is fun and filled with adrenaline. Together, those three actors stole the show.
Overall, if you were expecting a great horror movie with cool and thrilling murder scenes then prepare to be disappointed.
“Freaky,” as a whole, is a pretty average movie with nothing special about it. However, it is still a fun film to watch in the background with a small group of friends.
