Sunday, 10 October 2021

VOD: Freaky (dir: Christopher Landon, 2021)

"Welcome to Tragic-stan!"

From its red-tinged Universal opening ident, retro horror score and genre-classics riffing (and that's just the opening sequence), the cheeky high-concept premise - Freaky Friday meets Friday The 13th - hits the ground running in terms of establishing a fun and self-aware tone that is a full-blooded and very entertaining ride.  Landon hits the same enjoyable balance of comedy and horror seen in his Happy Death Day films (and especially the first of the two movies), with some sharp writing - there are some very funny gags in here - and clear sense of what works well in the genre.  The film is gifted with two extremely well-played and entertaining performances by Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton as the two body-swapped leads, and the subsidiary characters (such as Millie's two best friends and her mother) are unusually well-written.  The comedy and horror genres are notoriously difficult to mix, but Freaky works extremely well and it is good fun to watch,
 

No comments: