Freaky: Neon NZ Review

Happy Death Day's Christopher Landon is less interested in providing the frights in the comedy horror Freaky, and more interested in pursuing the humour and occasional scares.

In this Freaky Friday the 13th version of The Change Up, Newton stars as Millie Kessler, a bullied and withdrawn high schooler who's trying to get past the death of her father. Looking to escape her mother and go to college, Millie's life is changed when she's attacked by the Blissfield Butcher (Vaughn, initially in Michael Myers mode before switching to usual comedic edges).

The pair swap places (due to reasons way too vague and unexplained in the film's fumbles) after his attempts to murder her go awry - and Millie discovers she has just 24 hours to swap back before the change is made permanent.

Freaky does offer a clever - and relatively enjoyable - twist on the horror genre.

Opening with an extended stalk and kill sequence, the film's clearly got designs on the horror ouevre, but is less interested in pursuing that and more interested in a gender switch take on proceedings.

Newton shifts easily from awkward and shy to steely determination, channeling the unswerving gait of a killer stalking their victims. She's largely made redundant once the swap happens, confined to the background and given little else to do in favour of Vaughn.

Vaughn meanwhile, shifts focus from the early behaviour of a killer described as a "never underestimate a single white man's propensity for violence" to a teen girl trapped in a male body; an idea made famous by Rob Schneider's Hot Chick, and used to reasonable and surprising effect here.

Freaky doesn't outstay its welcome and does mess a little with the genre but never fully explores the depth it could have achieved. That's not to say the Freaky Friday body swap doesn't hold back from some of the more inventive kills - merely that it services the genre rather than overly shaping it and diving deeply into the meta world of horror films.

Ultimately, Freaky is a popcorn blockbuster of a horror movie - it's more interested in giving you jolts and scares, along with laughs and a good time in your seat, rather than sending you to the edge of it in pure fear.