I went camping in the woods this weekend. Anticipating that I wouldn’t be able to sleep worth shit (as always happens the first night when I go camping), I downloaded some movies to my phone and so I watched Freaky while cuddled up under a down quilt in <30° weather at 10,000’.
Freaky is not scary in the least, nor really is it funny, but it is a reasonably fun film. What I really liked about it is that it doesn’t waste your time. This is a slasher film and it gets right down to the slashing. The killer is just a big superstrong dude who likes to kill teenagers in brutal ways. No reason or justification is ever provided, though we get a short visual tour through his bedroom, which is like a set designer was told “serial killer kitsch: go wild!”
The real action begins when Vince Vaughan and Kathryn Newton switch places. It’s an interesting choice to have Vaughan’s character be a blank slate so that Newton kind of gets to characterize both of them: first a slightly morose but optimistic teenage girl with the obligatory black and gay friends, then the blank faced killer whose personality is kill. Vaughan actually does an admirable job playing Newton’s character–crucially he doesn’t overdo it and turns in a believable performance.
The murders (and there are many) are creative and fun. The plot is light enough that it doesn’t bog down. It was a good way to spend a sleepless couple of camping hours. One complaint: we’re supposed to believe the pre-switch Kathryn Newton–with her blonde ringlets cascading down beside her beautiful face and her perfectly fit body–is the ugly duckling of her school that the jocks and popular girls all pick on. At least they could have given her glasses, c’mon!