Christopher Landon, who has by now firmly established his capabilities with the thriller/horror genre (e.g. Disturbia and Paranormal Activity 2, 3 and 4), of late, prefers to show his deftness in the art of campy horror. Happy Death Day and Happy Death2U were films that merely served as a bridge to what he could achieve in that realm with Freaky. Obviously a spin-off of the title and concept behind Freaky Friday (the first film version released in 1976), Landon and his co-writer, Michael Kennedy, play up the slasher element with plenty of sardonic humor–of the variety that Diablo Cody could respect (in some regards, Freaky feels at times as though it lives in the same universe as Jennifer’s Body).
Wasting no time in getting right to the heart of “scary movie” tropes, the film opens with a group of four popular teenagers discussing the legend of the “Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn), laughing it off as an urban legend in a moment that, of course, is bound to conjure the illustrious serial killer in order to prove just how real the “myth” is. The first kill spares no expense in its memorable visual of a wine bottle being thrust down into and then right through the Adam’s apple of one of the boys’ throats. It, indeed, makes a Covid test seem bearable. He then makes his way toward the others, going about the effortless business of his kills before stumbling upon the sort of antique knife that could only be found at a rich person’s house. Allured by its “fanciness” (but also ostensibly the hypnotic nature of a magical knife and the effect that has on a serial killer), the Blissfield Butcher picks up the weapon–called La Dola–and takes it with him as yet another trophy from the killing(s).
All of this takes place on Wednesday the 11th (as the title card is sure to note). As word about the murders gets around on Thursday the 12th, meek Blissfield Valley High student Mille Kessler (Kathryn Newton) continues to go about her business, unlike much of the rest of the student body, who views the news as a way to glom onto tragedy porn to raise their own social cachet. In the morning, she still agrees to accompany her mother, Paula (Katie Finneran) to what promises to be a horrible community theater performance of Wicked instead of going to homecoming on Friday, while her sister, Charlene (Dana Drori), urges Millie to reconsider right in front of Paula as she pantomimes the killing herself with a gun gesture and reminds that homecoming, stupid tradition or not, is still a seminal high school experience. But self-sacrificing Millie can’t be convinced, so accustomed now to the guilt-ridden role she’s assigned herself as “dutiful daughter,” always there as a companion for her lonely, widowed mother.
Even her two best (and only) friends, Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich), can’t wrap their heads around Millie not advocating for herself and saying a firm “no” to her mother about Wicked and accompanying them to homecoming instead. It’s with the introduction of these two friends that it still bears noting that, despite it being 2020, even if “the gay boy” and “the black girl” appear in a slasher movie as characters, it’s still solely as “backup” for the blonde-haired white final girl. But, since she’s “from the wrong side of the tracks” (the mean girls at school are sure to remind her that her mother works at a retail discount store), it ekes by, one supposes, on the politically “woke” spectrum (if that wokeness is from an 80s era–though no one can ever have “wrong side of the tracks” down like Molly Ringwald).
That evening, Millie engages in the usual degrading act of performing as the mascot (a beaver, rife with innuendo, obviously) at the homecoming football game. Afterward, when she assures her friends her mother will pick her up any minute, she ends up all alone in the desolate after hours setting of the school. The proverbial smoke (fog) clears to reveal that, across the street, the Blissfield Butcher is there in the creepy tribal mask he had also stolen from the house, along with La Dola in his hand. It doesn’t take long for him to catch her, right in the center of the football field (for added ceremonial flair). Except, for the first time, when he stabs someone, he actually feels the same wound. It catches him off guard long enough for Charlene to find them and scare him off. Of course, while Millie thinks it’s over, it’s only just beginning.
Hence the dramatic title card the next morning reading: “Friday the 13th.” The day when everything reaches peak freaky, as expected. With the Blissfield Butcher waking up in Millie’s room, it’s evident that he immediately sees how to use this new body as the perfect cover for his next round of murders (and also a chance to grab the tits he now has). No one, after all, ever suspects a mild-mannered white girl of anything, let alone cold-blooded murder. Millie, on the other hand, is not at all “elated” about waking up in an abandoned warehouse on a mattress on the floor among the carcasses of animals and other such disturbing “memorabilia.” Encountering a homeless man who wanders in to ask if the Blissfield Butcher has any drugs, she runs screaming in horror. Not realizing yet how to operate the Butcher’s body, she has that syndrome of a large dog acting as though they’re a small one, bounding out into the street and greeting a familiar face before knocking someone else over. It doesn’t take long for her to understand that she really needs to keep a low profile, as everyone in town is looking for and recognizes the Blissfield Butcher.
In Millie’s body, meanwhile, the Butcher has decided to make an aesthetic upgrade, dressing her in a red leather jacket and applying red lipstick as a final indication that Millie has gone “bad” (a.k.a. “ho status”). In certain regards, this “destroy another person’s life while in their body” element smacks of another under the radar body swap classic, 1996’s Wish Upon A Star. Except the only one ruining someone’s life is the Butcher, while Millie, instead, makes him come across as somewhat empathetic in the initial phases of reconciling her new inherent power. As someone so accustomed to being bullied–even by one of her own teachers, Mr. Bernardi (Alan Ruck a.k.a. Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)–it takes Millie a moment to realize that people are afraid of her, and it’s exhilarating. Machiavelli, too, would agree that instilling fear in others is power. The inverse is the Butcher in Millie’s body comprehending the value of being underestimated as a result of being wrongly stereotyped, put into a box labeled “Weak.”
With each one learning something valuable about perception in the other’s body, the final scene speaks heavily to these revelations, and how, most especially, the perspective shift has fundamentally changed Millie. Not only how she views herself, but knowing, once and for all, that even as a serial killer, white men still seem to be taken more seriously than women. Or “frivolous” white girls, if you will.
