A body-swap horror movie that equally frights and delights tops the new DVD releases for the week of Feb. 9.
“Freaky”: It’s homecoming week, which, in the town of Blissfield, is also The Blissfield Butcher’s (Vince Vaughn) hunting season. This means trouble for high-schooler Millie (Kathryn Newton), who waits and waits on a bench outside her school for her mom (Katie Finneran) just one night after The Butcher has struck their community. Grief-stricken after Millie’s dad’s death, her mom has passed out drinking on the couch again, leaving Millie to fend for herself when The Butcher finds her. After a brief chase, it’s mayhem on the football field, as The Butcher has Millie in his clutches, raising a cursed knife stolen from a rich collector and plunging it into Millie’s shoulder as the full moon fills the sky. Only, as Millie’s cop sister (Dana Drori) interrupts, the stab wound makes The Butcher bleed, too.
The next morning, the unthinkable has happened (or, if you’ve seen any iteration of “Freaky Friday,” it’s pretty thinkable): Millie and The Butcher have swapped bodies, leaving the serial killer free to roam the high school and trapping Millie in a brutish man’s body (“I’m a giant,” she laments, trying and failing to keep a low profile).
From there, chaos and deaths abound, and creative ones at that. But what the film accomplishes is much bigger in its playful but sharp gender identity analysis, not to mention revenge against the patriarchy and privilege, in the script by Michael Kennedy and writer-director Christopher Landon. And it’s downright fun. Best friends Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich) help establish the charming, bonkers vibe (“It’s a slaughterhouse!” Josh announces, almost cheerily, after four of their classmates are brutally murdered).
