There’s a game that YouTube channel, The Valleyfolk play called Movie Movie game where the plots of 2 films where the titles crossover, and that feels like that how they came up with this film. Someone went “Freaky Friday the 13th” and someone took that and ran with it, and it’s a clever premise that I’ve never seen before.

If I didn’t spell it out in the previous paragraph, Freaky is about a young girl (Kathryn Newton) who is attacked by a serial killer (Vince Vaughn) when their bodies are swapped and they only have 24 hours to get back into their own bodies.

I found out not that long before the film’s release that Freaky was directed by Christopher Landon, who directed Happy Death Day and Happy Day Day 2 U so that actually got me more optimistic about the film, particularly the tone. The film was released towards the end of 2020 in some parts of the world, and I’d really positive things from horror movies fans, knowing that this was gonna be a bit of a spoof on horror films. And it lives up to that. I don’t think it’s quite as strong as I’d hope or it could be but it’s a lot of fun, particularly those moments where it is spoofing Friday the 13th and classic 70s/80s slasher horror, with some unique and creative kills, particularly in the opening scene.

Does Vince Vaughn have the most range of anyone in Hollywood currently? Maybe, we’ve seen him of course in his roles that he got famous for like Wedding Crashers and Dodgeball, to his more serious roles in Hacksaw Ridge, True Detective, Fighting with my Family and Brawl in Cell Block 99. And now in this, for the majority of the film, he plays a teenage girl stuck in a teenage girl’s body, and that’s where a lot the enjoyment comes from. Kathryn Newton also does a good job, playing a serial killer stuck in a teenager’s body, although maybe unbelievable playing an ugly high schooler.

The film’s flaws are the some not particularly great writing when it comes to the girl’s family, I think they could’ve showed more, we don’t particularly care about them. It’s difficult with this spoof genre because the best version of a film that spoofed horror is Scream, so I kind of wish that Freaky had gone more down the horror route throughout and those moments are the strongest parts, the movie slows down a lot for the comedy moments which some land, some don’t, especially an extremely weird and uncomfortable moment which I won’t spoil.

Overall, Freaky is a fun film for horror fans, some solid performances and isn’t like anything else out in the cinemas at the moment, but could’ve been more with such a great concept.

What did you think of Freaky?

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