'Freaky' is so much fun I only wish I'd seen it with an audience

Freaky is afflicted with the same annoying trait that a lot of nominal teen movies have -- its young characters are so arch, self consciously hip and overwritten that they aren't even a little bit relatable or recognizable as real people. 

It yet again casts an improbably attractive lead -- Kathryn Newton -- as a mousy outcast (she's a put-upon high school mascot to boot), even when she resembles the mean girls that bully her.

And yet, it is a fun watch in part because it is disarmingly grisly -- if you like that kind of thing -- and somewhat charmingly old school. It's not exactly scary, but it's entertaining in the way that Scream was. its secret weapon is a committed and spirited performance from Vince Vaughn, who has had one of the most mercurial movie star careers in recent memory.

He blew up on the scene with 1996's Swingers -- but then made a lot of poor career choices (like an ill-fated attempt to portray Norman Bates), before resurrecting his career as a straight comedy star with movies like Old School and Wedding Crashers. But then he fell out favor again -- with his right wing politics not doing him any favors. That was until director S. Craig Zahler teamed up with him for Brawl in Cell Block 99, in which he was a revelation in a badass dramatic role unlike any he's played before. 

In Freaky he's the adult in a horror spin on the Freaky Friday franchise, but instead of being a stuffy adult in need of loosening up he's a bloodthirsty serial killer. The switch happens early in the movie, so we don't get much time to establish his character but the movie really comes alive once the switch happens. Newton does a solid job channeling a creep and Vaughn is instantly a riot as a somewhat stereotypical teenage girl.

I haven't seen the director Christopher Landon's Happy Death Day movies (they looked a little smug to me), which appear to have taken on the gimmick of turning another beloved comedy, Groundhog Day, into a horror film, but this material feels more fertile and fun. It's so stupid and silly that it becomes quite fun. The film make's great use (as Brawl did) of Vaughn's massive build and his crack comic timing.

It's all really crowd-pleasing stuff -- with some fun nods to the gender dynamics and some decent stabs at pathos. Although it does have its fair share of plot holes and cringe-y moments.

Still, it also moves like a bullet -- with a bright color palette that is uncharacteristic for the genre. It plays well on TV, but would have been a blast to watch with a big raucous audience, which is why the news that broke today that Warner Brothers is taking their entire 2021 slate to streaming is so disheartening. Freaky has gotten some good reviews and buzz, but I have a hard time believing it will get the same audience it would had it played like a normal release in the pre-covd times.

My only hope it finds an audience somewhere, sometime -- because it deserves it.