Freaky

Better Than it Should Be

Walking into this film, I was honestly not expecting much more than an interesting concept that was going to get mangled by bad studio choices, luckily, things came out better than expected. II didn’t know much else about this, except for the trailer made the film look like it was good enough for at least one viewing, but I still picked a seat near the exit just in case.

Luckily, and saying this as a horror fan, it was still worth my time..
Freaky is your typical “body-swap” comedy film, this one standing out a little more because of the heavy emphasis of horror (hence the working title for the film as Freaky Friday the 13th but I guess that was too obvious for Blumhouse’s marketing). The movie is still definitely a comedy, as per some of the throwaway lines, character archetypes, and all of the situations, but surprisingly, the murder scenes are incredibly graphic, and in a few instances, absolutely brutal. Outside of the heavily gratuitous gore, this film is definitely for the high school crowd.
The story is pretty typical and nothing new is brought to the table, and the cinematography is slightly better than mediocre, the true stand outs are the acting and the dialogue. The characters are believable and sympathetic, and Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton are superb in their roles as the serial killer and the victim both before and after the switch. Vaughn is (not surprisingly) a very good teen girl, and Newton was excellent as a murderer, and the movie would have completely failed if they both could not pull this off. The supporting cast also do well, but there was a few moments where I can tell some sub-plots were dropped in the editing room, probably to keep this film’s run time down to “date movie” standards.
Funny enough for a teen comedy, however the sudden and explosive gore might be a turn off for some just looking for a laugh, and those looking for a scary movie are going to be dismayed by the lack of tension, but for those looking for a dark comedy, this hits all the right notes and while it won’t be a fave, it’s still considerably *good enough for now*.