Freaky (Video On Demand)
Starring Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Katie Finneran, Celeste O’Connor, and Alan Ruck.
Directed by Christopher Landon
Rating: *
No amount of shiver-coating can hide the fact that this purported terror fest is as sick in mind as it is in body.After watching several teenagers being savagely slain,it seemed all in vain. Who can takes this maelstrom of mayhem seriously, unless you are a sucker for masochism? Apparently there’s a whole universe of self-punishers out there who love the senseless bloodbath and find a man being sawed into two halves(from head to bum) entertaining.
Some of the international reviews for this gore fest found the humour amidst the horror most gratifying. To that I say, I pity your lives. If pleasure is to be derived from the exploits of a serial killer nicknamed Butcher (thus named for obvious reasons)then we are indeed a civilization thriving on depravity.
I found Freaky neither funny nor fearful. Just plain stupid. After a point the ostensibly innovative killings ran out of steam.And what we were left with is an oldfashioned body-swap one-note comedy where the Butcher(Vince Vaugn) exchanges his body with the teen heroine Millie Kessler(Kathryn Newton). Thereafter the joke is that the Butcher looks like the killer but behaves like the teen heroine as Millie’s friends try to look as if they care.Ha ha
Very soon the plot runs out of excuses to extend the playing time . The same confrontational situation is created between Millie(in the Butcher’s Body) and the Butcher(in Millie’s body).
What does resonate beyond the basic pedestrian ism of the material on-hand, is the need to shut down a plot before it finally collapses under the weight of its nothingness. Vince Vaughan has been praised for his performance. But shrieking yelling oohing and aahing like a girl is not the crest of histrionics. We’ve seen actors of the stature of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire behave like women dispossessed..
There is no drag act in Freaky. But what a drag!
