‘I had no idea how I was going to be a serial killer’
As Freaky arrives in cinemas, Georgia Humphreys hears from star Kathryn Newton, writer/director Christopher Landon and producer Jason Blum.
FREAKY isn’t just a gruesome, hilarious body-swap movie with Vince Vaughn as a teenage girl; it also has a heartwarming story.
Big Little Lies star Kathryn Newton, 24, takes on the role of 17-year-old Millie Kessler, who we see become the newest target of her town’s infamous serial killer, The Butcher, played by Vaughn, 51.
When we first meet her, she’s just an innocent schoolgirl being bullied by the popular crowd, and trying to get through her time at Blissfield High.
But by the end of the film, after inhabiting the body of The Butcher, she has become empowered, and there is a sense that now she knows who she is.
LA native Newton, who also starred in comedy Blockers, acknowledges it was nice to be part of a film that had a message which will resonate especially with a younger demographic. “The lesson here is that if you’re having a hard time growing up, or you’re not sure about who you are, just be patient with yourself,” she notes.
“When I was in eighth grade, I had the worst outfits of my life. I made the weirdest fashion decisions. I ran for class president; nobody knew who I was, because I missed a lot of school. I was on my academic decathlon team, I was captain of my golf team, and I was just so uncool.
“But now, all those things have really paid off for me. I still take those fashion risks; I like to have fun and that’s just who I am. And I still play golf. It’s just part of my life.
“So, to have a movie that can tell such a sweet story in the most fun, roller coaster, thrilling way, that’s the magic of a movie, and Freaky does it.”
Directed and co-written by
Christopher Landon, here’s the premise of Freaky: The Butcher has a mystical ancient dagger that causes him and Millie to wake up in each other’s bodies – and there are just 24 hours f get her body back before the for Millie to becomes permanent.
The issue is, she now looks like a towering, middle-aged maniac who’s the target of a city-wide manhunt, while The Butcher looks like her and is ready to attend homecoming for a killing spree.
Luckily, Millie is not alone in her race against the clock to get her body back; she has help from her friends, ultra-woke Nyla (Celeste O’Connor), ultra-fabulous Joshua (Misha Osherovich), and her crush, Booker (Uriah Shelton).
It’s worth noting just how brilliant Minneapolis-born Vaughn is in this role.
Discussing the casting, producer Jason Blum – the founder and chief executive of Blumhouse Productions, known for horror franchises Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge – recalls how he first had a meeting with the Wedding Crashers star two or three years ago.
“I really liked him. He’s a very unusual guy, a very likeable guy, and we had a really good meeting and he expressed a desire to be in one of our movies. And then finally, this came along, and Chris [Landon] loved the idea of him.
“He is the first person we went to for the part. And I was so psyched he dived in, because it’s like the old Vince Vaughn, it’s the Vince Vaughn we all fell in love with.”
As for how 52-yearold Blum – who hails from LA – got Newton on board, turns out she had worked with him when she was 14, on Paranormal Activity
4.
“She initially said no, she didn’t want to do Freaky,” he reveals. “And then I said, ‘I want to meet with you’. And she came to my office, and I talked her into it. And I’m very glad she did, because she does a great job in the movie.”
A challenge of making this film could have been getting the film’s blend of horror and comedy right, but Landon explains it’s not something he’s “calculating” when writing.
“It’s something that comes a little bit more organically, it’s a little bit more natural, and the way that a good horrorcomedy works, they naturally move and shift between those two tones with relative ease,” follows the film-maker, who’s also scripted films like thriller Disturbia.
“So, I really just set out to sit down and write the movie that I would like to watch, and hopefully that balance is there. I kind of wing it!”
What he says helped with the process, was having a character like Millie, who has an emotional journey for audiences to follow.
“I grew up on horror films, and especially on slasher movies, and while I love them, they always kind of lacked strong central characters that were driving the narrative. It’s critical to create characters people can relate to and root for.”
He also touches on the relatable issues Millie goes through, revealing that he himself was “bullied quite a bit in high school, and before that”.
“So, I wanted to really put out this message that appearances don’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts,” he suggests.
For Newton, another appeal of the role was getting to explore both the light and the dark within the script.
There’s Millie, who’s “really close to home; I was a total nerd in high school and such a dork”.
And then she gets to portray the “really crazy journey” her character goes on.
“I had no idea how I was going to be a serial killer. But he [Christopher Landon] said he saw a killer in me – I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” she says, laughing.
“But he brought it out of me. And without someone like Vince Vaughn to collaborate with, and take all his great ideas and put them together, I don’t think it would have been the same movie.”