Mini Film Review – Freaky

Yesterday I watched Freaky; and it was pretty good! Directed by Christopher Landon, and starring Kathryn Newton, Vince Vaughn, Celeste O’Connor, and Misha Osherovich; Freaky is a comedy slasher film about a bullied teenager, who wakes up to a real nightmare, when she discovers that she has swapped bodies with a local serial killer! What looks like a new take on Face/Off, comes across more like Your Name., with a splash of Jack Black‘s performance in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. The film is setup rather nicely, as it shows the hard life of the film’s lead protagonist, and the daily bouts of suffering she has to endure from all those around her. This also helps set up another main point, that being that those who all later end up being slaughtered, deserve it! None of them come across in any positive way, and are characters that the audience will love to see meet their demise. It may sound cruel, but yeah, they pretty much deserve it! Anyway, our protagonist does have some loyal friends, which of course help out when things get even worse. Both Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton are able to seamlessly switch between evil villain, and frantic teenager at the drop of a hat. The film also works hard at teasing the viewer with cliché’s, but then not deliver them, instead creating some rather savage surprises. The film though does plod along at a rather slow rate, and by the half way point you do wish that they would just get on with it. Plus that ending is rather overkill, as you’d rather be teased at the prospect of a sequel, and see a happy new life for the protagonist; not this extra bit which just feels like an awkward ending. But all that aside, it was a bit decent comedy, packed with some cool characters, and lots of brutality for good measure. The only thing really missing was someone shouting a Mortal Kombat style “Fatality“!