In meta-slasher Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, the enthusiastic, subtext-hyping interview subject, while planning his movie-friendly killing spree, waxes rhapsodic on what a turning point it will be when his designated Final Girl grabs a “big, long, hard weapon” of her own: “She’s empowering herself. With cock.”
Christopher Landon’s Freaky takes that idea a step further. Some choose cock, and some have cock thrust upon them. And sometimes it’s literal.
Kathryn Newton’s Millie is a familiar Final Girl—shy but not off-putting, beautiful but unaware of it—with a pinch of bullied Carrie White for seasoning. Newton, like many of her predecessors in the genre, is far, far too good-looking to play a high school outcast, but if ever there was a movie where that didn’t matter, it’s this one, where bodies are fundamentally fungible. Millie’s physical form matters, but it matters most to douchebags, and they’re lazy enough to read and accept the heap of signifiers piled on top of it—the dowdier clothes, the tongue-tied introversion, all the “ignorable nice girl” material—instead.
And then Millie runs afoul of the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), a local legend who’s just warming up for another major, nightmarish assault on the town’s high school students. He stabs her with a magic dagger, and while it’s such a minor wound that she goes to sleep in her own bed that night, when she wakes up, she’s somewhere else. Someone else.
She’s in the Butcher’s body, and he’s in hers.
Christopher Landon likes his tropes, and he knows how to use them. He certainly knows that one of the pleasures of an on-screen body swap is how it can become a vehicle for fun, unconventional performances, so the movie immediately sets about giving Newton and Vaughn as much to do as possible.
Like Jack Black in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Vaughn gives a nuanced and funny performance as a teenage girl. His Millie’s amused delight over her new penis (“it looks like a floppy anteater!”) is probably one of the most quotable lines in the film. Her arc in Vaughn’s body ultimately turns surprisingly sweet, too. Over in Millie’s body, the Butcher may be playing out a kind of revenge and empowerment fantasy, strutting around the halls with a cool new look and brutally killing Millie’s bullying teacher (the always great Alan Ruck), but (almost1) nothing he does is about or for Millie, though she’s taking notes on how good her body looks in that leather jacket. Her own emotional journey is more about squishy emotions, not polished exteriors or the hardened clash of flesh on flesh. She reaches out to her mom (in a scene that turns incredibly awkward, in a welcome use of comedy). She thinks about power, physical and otherwise. She lands her crush, who likes who she is so much, and sees her so well, that he’s perfectly fine having their first kiss even when she’s in the Butcher’s body. It’s nice!
And niceness is one of Freaky’s stocks in trade. It doesn’t always do much with the “comedy” side of its horror-comedy classification—it has funny bits (see: Vaughn’s Millie doing the mascot dance to convince her friends she is who she says she is) but nothing too uproarious—but it keeps things light and fresh and positive in a way that’s part of the genre too. For an appealing contrast, it juxtaposes that it’ll-all-work-out bounce with some genuine fun from the horror side of the aisle: there are some good kills here, wild enough that they’re funny in their own way. The opening scene of the Butcher shoving a whole wine bottle down some kid’s throat is a big winner in that regard, and this kind of thing does a lot to balance the overall sunniness of Millie’s storyline and give the film a bit of teeth.
While I’m still looking for the Landon film that will live up the highs of Happy Death Day, this is likable, entertaining outing. It drags a bit, and I’d take the last “oops, back for more!” part of the ending out completely, but it’s fun and thoroughly committed to its premise.
Freaky is streaming on Peacock.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
Dan Duryea gets a shave and a second chance.
Anthologized
A little slice of American folklore that feels like it's been here all along.
Streaming Shuffle
You make your royal bed, and you lie in it.
Anthologized
Alone in vast space and timeless infinity: one man in a ghost town.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Justified, Season Four, Episode Twelve, “Peace of Mind”
“Winona, I don’t know shit about girls.”
“That is so sweet. Sayin’ it like I don’t already know.”
“What’s the matter, Raylan? Not used to positive attention?”
“No, I love it. Continue.”
It probably says something that this feels like where the story is really kicking into gear – especially that I’m well-trained on drama and enjoy the part of the story that’s all consequence. Everyone is cleaning up and looking to profit from the Drew Thompson affair, especially Drew himself, and Raylan has finally simply gotten over himself and decided to go back to working, where he functions best. Let’s face it, Colton was never going to make it. Ellen May making it is a surprise, though there’s still one episode to go. It makes sense that as someone right at the bottom of the totem pole of American life, she takes peace from religion – that’s what Christianity was made for, after all. Ava, on the other hand, rejects the notion of God or Fate entirely, choosing to believe in her own ability to dictate the world.
“I guess I’ll quit today.” Hell of last words. In a lot of ways, Colt was an artist, and that’s why he couldn’t live too long in this world. Tim flogging his sunglasses is cool.
Biggest Laugh: Raylan’s conviction that he can be suspended tomorrow, at his own convenience.
Biggest Non-Art Laugh: Rachel putting Limehouse at ease by standing up to him.
Top Ownage: “They didn’t armour their feet, asshole!”
Drew and Ellen May hugging each other is such a nice beat.
I also love how long we see Drew simply beaming at her at the end.
84 Charing Cross Road – Alas, more like 84 Boring Cross Road. A NYC book collector and a London bookseller conduct a 20 year friendship through the mail. That’s really all there is here. By end, when instead of hearing the letters as narration we see the principals basically talking to each other (a clear indication of the movie’s stage play roots), I had checked out. Mel Brooks apparently bought the rights to this as a gift for Anne Bancroft, and both she and Anthony Hopkins are fine here.
The Practice, “Neighboring Species” – The Boston zoning board tells a stem cell research lab it needs to move since it poses a “risk to the community.” But it’s clear that the people on the board are opposed to the research. Part of the episode is Kelley once more trying to address the abortion debate and its cousin, and trying hard to show both sides while supporting choice and stem cell research. And part is Eugene saying some stuff that both Jimmy and Bobby consider anti-Catholic, and trying to make Eugene examine his beliefs, but it’s all clumsy. Eugene’s closing is kind of a mess, and even invokes 9/11 again. (Doesn’t help that the researcher, played by everyone’s favorite Doctor, Robert Picardo but bearded, confesses to harvesting embryos as well as using discarded IVF embryos, making the whole endeavor look bad.) Overall, an interesting effort that doesn’t really work. Meanwhile, Linsday has her first case on her own, but there’s not much to it.
Primal, “Heart of the Undead”
Spear’s hallucinatory internal confrontation, staged via waterfall reflections and imaginings, is the kind of thing animation can do so much better and more compellingly than live action. Incredible volcanic landscape here, as well.
The villagers driving Spear away is very Frankenstein, and just as painful–maybe even more so than most iterations of that story, since we have the more intimate betrayal here of Fang’s roar announcing his presence in the first place.
Inside No. 9, “Hurry Up and Wait”
Shearsmith plays a low-level actor with a small role in a TV drama based off a real-life unsolved child abduction; while stuck killing time in a caravan that the crew has repurposed as a green room (paying the usual occupants but not ousting them), he starts to think he may have found some unsettling clues about the actual case. Very good build-up of dread with a sharp sting in the tail (just because he’s not in the specific, famously problematic horror movie he thinks he’s in doesn’t mean he’s not in a horror movie at all); this is all balanced by some entertaining and almost painfully acerbic industry satire, with Adrian Dunbar playing a comedically asshole-ish version of himself, anxious to insist he’s never played the same part twice and eager to steal every good line in the production.
Also two more episodes of Taskmaster, but I didn’t have time to write down quotes before I had to go to work, so future write-ups will be filled with blatant lies, implying I watched all these episodes later than I did. As a matter of fact, I watched that Primal episode on Monday, too, and forgot to write it up then. Time is just a construct.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins – Pilot was pretty funny and did a nice job of introducing the characters! Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe promise a good comedic pairing given their energies, one being absurd without any self-awareness while the other is perpetually fed up until he explodes.*
Funniest bits: “What is this even an ad for?!” “Of course, Russell, my friend regardless of race.” “It’s YOUR fault, Viola Davis!” Russell and Reggie planning for the conclusion of the documentary to be that Russ gets “Taken” so Reggie can save him. I enjoy that “Taken” has become a phrase for a very specific fictional situation. Brina after insulting Reggie’s ex: “Oh, Monica has been nothing but lovely to me. I just want to be in the documentary!”
Can’t watch the second episode currently as my brother in law’s Peacock doesn’t have access. I’ll watch the commercials, how is that not good enough for Peacock?!
*Apparently IRL Radcliffe found out Tracy Morgan has a shark tank and concluded he should really be acting more ostentatiously rich.
Fun movie! Two very funny bits here are the Butcher yelling “This body is USELESS!” when his small body, formerly so tall and intimidating, can’t break down a locked door, and Millie’s flamboyantly gay friend covering for her by telling his mother “I’m…straight?” with the least convincing delivery imaginable.
Yes to both! And the mom not even remotely buying that is another good comedic beat.