Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Freaky’ on HBO Max, a Body-Horror-Swap Hybrid Starring an Inspired Vince Vaughn

Now on HBO, Freaky is a horror-comedy that once had a working title of Freaky Friday the 13th, which pretty much explains it all while quite possibly violating a copyright or two. Vince Vaughn is the killer and Kathryn Newton is the would-be victim and they swap brains for a day thanks to a little of this and a little of that and also a whole lotta silliness. Now let’s see if its clever conceptual hybrid results in some good scares and laughs.

FREAKY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s Wednesday the 11th in Blissfield, a bullshit middle-America town with lots of sunshine, tweety birds, powerwalking retirees and one deranged killer who’s been slaughtering people since 1977. The story opens with four stupidass teenagers whose character names (and the actors who played them in parentheses) are unimportant, because they’re about to be ruthlessly hacked up for shits and shiggles by the Blissfield Butcher (Vaughn). On the way out, the Butcher finds a neat ancient knife that is clearly a Thing You Shouldn’t Eff With, which is exactly the kind of thing he wants to eff with, cuz that’s his style.

The next day is the day before Friday the 13th because, yes, the calendar works as usual in Blissfield too. Millie (Newton) is a high school dorkwad who wears gumpy clothes and plans to forego the homecoming dance to see a janky community-theater production of Wicked with her mom (Katie Finneran), who’s a lonely alcoholic because their dad/husband died. So Millie’s got a sad mom and a dead dad and bad hair and a cop sis and a boy crush and mean girls and a beaver suit because she’s the oft-abused school mascot. Her two best buds are Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich), who love and support her but also give her crap because they’re teenagers.

One night, Millie’s half in her beaver and waiting for Mom to pick her up after a game when the Butcher lurks up to her with the weird knife. She can’t run very fast in the beaver bottom half so he catches her and stabs her with a great and mighty dumb CG special effect that results in the brain-swap. The cop sis (Emily Holder) arrives and chases the Butcher off. The next morning, the Butcher wakes up in a body with boobs, and Millie finds herself in Vince Vaughn’s lumpy-hulk frame. Of course, the weirdknife has rules: if they don’t stab each other within 24 hours to reverse the spell, the switcheroo becomes permanent. So Millie dashes around Blissfield with the face of a man whose police sketch is all over the news, trying to find the Butcher, who’s using her body to continue his psychopathic spree. All together now: I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Freaky, as explained above, combines elements of Freaky Friday with Friday the 13th.

Performance Worth Watching: Vince Vaughn playing a teenage girl, WE ARE HERE FOR YOU.

Memorable Dialogue: Take your pick:

“It’s a vagina, not an all-night drive-thru.” — a soon-to-be-dead teenager

“You’re black! I’m gay! We’re dead!” — Josh somehow finds time to skewer ancient slasher-movie tropes as the Butcher chases them

Sex and Skin: If teenagers don’t get nasty in a slasher flick or a spoof of a slasher flick, then it ain’t a slasher flick or a spoof of a slasher flick.

Our Take: Before you deep-sigh at yet another Screamy self-referential horror parody, let it be known that Vaughn is as funny as ever in this. He appears to be having a whale of time, really throwing himself into touchy-feely teen-girl moments and the wow-I-have-a-penis bits. Without him, Freaky is naught but a reasonably halfway-amusing high-concept mostly forgettable effort by director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day), who’s kind of Sam Raimi Lite here. That’s mostly a compliment.

Writers Landon and Michael Kennedy keep the movie references — they really don’t get much deeper than the Butcher’s leather hockey mask — and look-ma-my-tongue’s-in-my-cheek stuff within reason. They deliver a few uber-nasty kills and land a fair amount of jokes. The tone is zany and upbeat, and you’ll laugh often enough to sustain yourself for 100 minutes. We don’t ask for too much from these types of films, so when they deliver a scintilla or three beyond our expectations, they nearly feel damn revelatory.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Freaky is reasonably clever dumb fun. As far as entertaining diversions go, you could do much, much worse than Vaughn squeezing himself into a teenager’s psyche.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Freaky