Review of Freaky (2020) by Thequietgamer — 02 May 2021

A fun, bloody spin on body-swapping comedies. It runs into some problems with the cheap gore effects and the fact that it tries to pull a Carrie 2013 and convince us that a conventionally pretty blonde white girl is an unattractive mega-loser, but a memorable Vince Vaughn performance and the way it subtly pays homage to classic slasher films (sans the blatant Friday the 13th callbacks in the opening) made it so Freaky won me over when all was said and done.

One thing that's always bugged me about these kind of movies is how different the characters tend to act when they end up in another person's body. Like how in Shazam! Billy Batson only behaved like a kid when he turned into Zachary Levi, among countless other examples. This is something Freaky manages to avoid however. Vaughn portrays protagonist "Millie Kessler" with the exact same energy Kathryn Newton does when the big soul-switcheroo takes place, never overplaying his role as a teenage girl for laughs the way Jamie Lee Curtis did back in 2003. A move that actually makes things a whole lot funnier.

I was surprised to find that on top of the humor and gleefully over-the-top murder, there's a little bit of heart here too. Nothing that will bring tears to your eyes or stick with you after the credits have rolled, but as hard as it may be to buy into Millie's schoolyard troubles as the type of girl boys don't look twice at, particularly when she's got a butt like that, her familial struggles centered around the loss of their patriarch does lead to a bit of sentimentality whenever her sister and mother are onscreen.

Of course, what's really going to pull you in are the antics that unfold as our lead tries to get back into her body before she becomes stuck inside of a serial killer forever. The resulting string of hilarious and cartoonishly violent scenarios are enough of a blast to make you overlook it's handful of flaws, like how things get wrapped up so neatly and without questions or repercussions despite Millie and her pals' suspicious behavior. Freaky simply provides enough clever twists on well-worn concepts via its combination of genres to be worth engaging in the required suspension of disbelief.