It’s not always the case that movies that meet with approval from both critics and audiences get the attention they deserve, so it’s good to see Freaky in the Top 10 on Netflix. Especially when it has such a unique premise.
Blumhouse consistently delivers some of the best original horror movies out there but Freaky is a little bit different. Part Freaky Friday and part slasher, this 2020 movie is a rare horror/comedy, perhaps the best since Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. Freaky stars Vince Vaughn (Dodgeball, Wedding Crashers and dozens of others) and now Ant-Man Quantumania star Kathryn Newton.
The film follows Newton’s Millie, a teenager on the fringes of the Highschool social jungle as through a supernatural event she swaps bodies with Vaughn’s serial killer, ‘The Butcher of Blissfield’, and you thought Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis changing bodies was weird.
It soon becomes a race against time for Millie, now a lumbering middle aged man, to convince her friends what’s happened and swap back with the killer before he can cause too much chaos at school. Expect to laugh, wince and think along the way.
While not one for the kids, with an 83% critic rating and 80% audience score, Freaky is definitely worth a watch, even if just to see Vince Vaughn acting out cheerleader routines. The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee awarded it four stars, full of praise for the lead performances and describing the filma as “an exciting and unexpected studio movie with a brain, some guts and a heart.”
While it released during lockdown, this is definitely a movie worth inviting some friends over, grabbing some snacks and hiding under the blankets. Freaky it may be, but this movie is also fresh.
