THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Trading Places had two strangers swap lifestyles, Face/Off had two rivaled men swap faces and Freaky Friday showed a mother-daughter duo swap bodies. Even The Hot Chick showed a teenage girl swap bodies with a male thief. How could you top the concept of two people going through drastic changes in their lives? Have a teenage girl swap bodies with a serial killer.
PLOT
2020's Freaky follows teen Millie Kessler who lives with her widowed mother Coral (Katie Finneran) and adult officer sister Charlene (Dana Drori). She goes to BlissfieldValley High School with her friends Nyla and Josh. They invite her to the school's homecoming dance, but she prefers attending a theater play with her mom. On the night of Thursday the 12th, after working as a mascot for the school football game, she even turns down a ride from her friends and chooses to wait on her mom. She doesn't show up at all due to having another alcoholic fit and passing out drunk until Char calls her, before her cellphone dies. As she waits for her sister, she gets chased by the local serial killer known as the 'Blissfield Butcher'. When he gets to pin her down, he stabs her with an ancient dagger called 'La Dola'. Before he could finish her, Cha arrives in time to stop that from happening, collecting the dagger as evidence. By next morning, it is Friday the 13th and both people have switched bodies: The Blissfield Butcher is in Millie's body while she is in his. As the Butcher adjusts to Millie's body, no one acts suspicious of her strange behavior, attributing it as shock from the attack. He then gives the body a makeover by wearing a ponytail and wearing Char's red leather jacket. This gets everyone's attention and uses it as an advantage. Within the day, she ignores Millie's friends and kills two of her bullies, a popular girl named Ryler (Melissa Collazo) and wood shop teacher Mr Bernardi (Alan Ruck). As for Millie, she struggles to blend in as civilians recognize her body as her tormentor. However, she is able to win over Nyla & Josh by answering personal questions and perform the school's mascot dance. When she explains that the dagger caused the body swap, they look into it on her behalf and discover that it is used in a ritual sacrifice and if it backfires, the swap will be permanent in 24 hours. This means that Millie must stab the Butcher by midnight to reverse the swap. When the trio of friends spot him, he uses her body to an advantage by alerting the police of 'his' presence, resulting in him to go into hiding for a while. Millie hides at a clothing store where her mother works. This unexpectedly gives her the chance to have a heart to heart moment with her, encouraging her to give her space, unbeknownst of the situation. When she eventually leaves, her friends browse social media and spot the Butcher at a local arcade, intending to kill a group of jocks starting with her crush Booker. Millie stops that from happening when she gets there, incapacitating the Butcher with her newfound strength. She also decides to do the same with Josh to avoid him from calling the police. With everyone regrouped at Josh's house, Millie explains the situation to Booker and confirms who she is by admitting she sent him an anonymous love poem. Josh then decides to keep an eye on the Butcher while Booker goes with Millie and Nyla to steal the dagger at the police station. As the former two wait for the latter, Millie admits to have gained confidence and gets her first kiss from Booker who feels the same about her. However, the Butcher eventually breaks free and makes way to the police station. By the time she gets there, Char catches Nyla trying to steal the dagger. When Millie intervenes, she locks her sister in a holding cell, unintentionally giving the Butcher the chance to leave with a cop car and the dagger. With the homecoming dance getting cancelled due to Millie's attack the night prior, students tend to unofficially host their own dance at an old mill. That same mill is where the Butcher, which makes it the perfect killing floor for him. During the dance, he does end up killing four jocks, but Millie is able to get the upper hand and take back the dagger to undo the swap, with five minutes to spare. With the swap reversed, the cops shoot down the Butcher in his body, whereas Millie reunites with her friends and family in her body. However, the Blissfield Butcher is shown to still be alive when he removes fingertip pulse oximeter, faking his death in the ambulance. When he breaks free, he pursues the house of the Kesslers, with the hopes to kill Millie. However, she and her family eventually overpower him and the film ends with Millie stabbing him with a wooden post.
THOUGHTS
When the COVID-19 pandemic affected the United States in 2020, I didn't really rush myself to new releases because I wasn't sure of the directions going forward with the future of cinema. I was so caught up with the past that I forgot to embrace the future. Originally, I wasn't interested to check this out at the time theaters reopened, but my newfound positivity reminded me to give this a chance. And now, I resent myself for not seeing it sooner because this was fun. Christopher Landon has another go around with the horror comedy concept and takes best advantage of embracing both genres combined. The timing is right with each comedic moment and it ups the ante with its ante. Just when you think you can handle the gore from the opening, you'll realize how wrong you are by the time Ryler gets frozen in a cryo-tank and Mr Bernardi gets sawed in half with a saw belt. It didn't half to go there, but I'm glad it did to remind us that this would be far from a smooth trip. Of course all of these traits make the movie memorable, but oddly enough, I've been coming around to prefer this over Happy Death Day because of its creative expression of self love. Every person lives different lives because we choose to live the way we want to and prefer being ourselves than what others perceive. But in the end, there must be confidence to ensure they respect you. It's crazy on how I caught on to this through a dual performance of two characters played by two actors who nail both sides of the coin. With Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn onboard, they both handle the roles of the eager yet shy Millie and sadistic Blissfield Butcher. And it gets crazier when seeing how the actors are at their best when playing the opposite sex. Newton is at her most seductive as the Butcher and Vaughn is hilarious pretending to be the teenage girl that is Millie. Keeping a straight face while he does the mascot dance is impossible for me. We're rooting for Millie the whole time because we want her to have the chance to be the best version of herself. When her dad passed away, she felt lost and chose to be by her mother's side. She couldn't ask for personal space because she didn't want to be selfish about it, which is something I admire. In the most unlikely of circumstances, her encounter with the Butcher and the journey she went through helped her regain the confidence to do whatever she would set her mind to. It is proven so when she pulled off slaying her tormentor personally and proved that she will not let others define her. Aside from the tough decisions she made along the way, she would've not had that mindset without the best friends she could ever ask for. Celeste O'Connor and Misha Osherovich were a great pair as Nyla & Josh. They put the biggest smile on my face throughout because they're the ones who always encouraged Millie to be herself and never treated her as if she needed to be different to fit in. It is pretty ironic that Josh does more harm than good when he can't explain to his mother of the situation that progressed. As if Millie couldn't get any more lucky, she is able to get the boy who is with her until the end. I enjoyed Uriah Shelton as well for playing Booker as the kind of guy that loves people for who they are inside rather than out. This defends the case on why he and Millie fall for each other, they know that their hearts are more valuable than their looks. That is further proven when he was willing to kiss her in a man's body. If he's gonna go that far to prove how considerate he is, then this relationship is gonna last a long time. With the trauma at an end, it should be a safe bet that Millie is gonna start fresh by continuing to be her best self and ignore the negativity this time around. I've given this movie enough credit where it's due, but even I can admit that it had moments of cringe. To get it out of the way, Char sucks as a cop. She doesn't freak out whenever 'Millie' had a knife, points a gun at Nyla and leaves the door open. I get caught up worrying about Millie, yet I wonder how does Char function without common sense. Now I don't want to pick on background posters, but who the hell has half a poster? If Millie really likes Pitch Perfect, she would not damage its poster. If there is anything else that bothered me a lot when it came to her, it would have to be relying on her mom to pick her up. I know she's being considerate, but she should've texted her sister ahead of the game to avoid waiting. The Blissfield Butcher was pretty smart for a serial killer, but even he messed up as well. It was already weird noticing that he never wore gloves, but I'm baffled that he chooses to get messy with his kills by the last hour. I don't want to root for the bad guys, but he was clearly not wise on that end because had Millie not stopped him, it would've been a hard story for her to come up with and save her cover. Other than that, this is still generally fun of a movie. In short, Freaky exceeded my expectations as a highly entertaining horror comedy, bringing a great balance of both worlds. Whichever genre you prefer, check this out while you can.
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