When the credits roll, that is what matters:
Vince Vaughn jests “little girls shouldn’t play with guns” in Freaky, a 2020 horror film on streaming something (or download it or borrow a friends login or ask me, and I’ll share mine).
But what the movie does is reinforce gender stereotypes; it shows a white people world where you’re second fiddle to a white girl, a stereotyped gay bestie and strong skinny fun spunky sassy black girl, dozens of police and ambulance are always there to pursue justice and provide medical services (and cups of tea/coffee/blankets) while in a somehow unmanned “Aww shucks dems budget cuts took our jurbs!” style podunk town, where the sexy lady but gruff and “professional” police chief seem to be just barely scraping by (their evidence locker is in the main room of deep boiled oudschool desks and papers cop room, and easily opened by keys conveniently hanging next to it, because cops are trustworthy and oh so authoritative that they don’t have better security for murder evidence lockup’s), and are sisters with “normal” white high school girls, oddly fantasizes what rich and white people want: a security blanket for everything where sure things can get a bit zany, but it all works out in the end.
We see justice through the eyes of the sister cop, sexy and cool and badass with a gun. Able to rush in and save the day. All the other cops are background characters; just present figures looming around ready to enact “justice” (even though it’s fun and zany that they’re chasing a girl inside a tall white hulks body, while really they should be chasing the blond white teen girl with a murders mind/“soul” intent on senseless murder and violence all somehow explained through ancient Aztec cultural ritual sacrifice practice that’s somehow really the cause of blame for everything?), just are sort of ineffectual, or one step behind a Freaky-Fridayed Muderer-high school girl… because she hides in plain sight and cries wolf when the authority comes to the scenes of her crimes, so she can easily escape; always somehow free from blood (until she murders a bi-curious footballer jacket boi, who makes unwanted sexual advancement on the sassy gay best friend, who’d just shoved / rejected the footballers advances after the footballer calls him a “f*ggot”, as she as the murderer somehow rips through a wall with a butchers hook and stabs the unselfish-aware bicurious footballer, showered in his blood).
How are there like 3 ambulances there so quickly (that’s like at least 9 (para)medical staff/ ambulance driver)? This is a conflict at a semi-rural / suburban high school; how are all these personnel active / ready to respond so quickly?
Because this is a middle American dreamworld horror, where kids can hop in their own car and run away from the murderer/ confused police.
Or if you’re the murderer, whose “soul”/mind is inside the cops sisters body, you don’t cause alarm to the cop sister, speeding straight at her, while she’s just witnessed you steal her police cruiser, and peel out full speed, clearly with intent to not stop… to pursue more murder.
Why does a big white man who gets his body swapped with a budding high school smart-babe, only communicate and say and feel “oddly empowered”, as Vince vagina having characters high schooler woman’s consciousness/“soul” inside a mans body.
Why is a mass murders mind/soul inside a smaller high school girls frame, unable to commit his heinous disgusting amazingly beautifully gory slaughters? The flick shows and tells us time and again “she’s too weak”, “easily overpowered”.
Does the mass murders mind (who’s evaded detection for days, and been seen in public countless times, wearing a mask that doesn’t disguise a hulking middle aged man walk with high schoolers), healthy young frame and cunning, not have the cleverness to kill unless he uses her feminine side to “remove men from their survival guard”?
Her shop teacher kicks her while she’s down. Over. And over. But we are supposed to be feeling good, because it’s not the high-schooler (a protector cops lil’sis n bestie), it’s a murder inside the body of a high-school girl. Using his weakness of heart and “manly sympathy” after beating on a young girls framewnf, he lowers his carnal gorilla defenses and allows himself to be severed in two by a shop-table-saw.
Don’t mind our typos, inconsistency in plot order or rhetorics; you should distrust trust particular flavor of carefully crafted, beginning-middle-end stories packaged and edited and filtered to sell their own messages and “authority”.
The reverse argument could be made for all of the above;
It’s a film of queer empowerment and how a little high school girl outsmarts a mass murderer with their power of her besties by her side. A world where bumbling authority tries to doll out justice, but just is confused because the murderers in the girl’s body, and the girls in the murderer’s body. A horror comedy of errors, where justice prevails and it takes 3 or four people to overpower a 4 time shot by cops Vince Vaughn, who only die with a wooden stake badass-lady-kicked through his chest / heart.
But this is how blum makes their money; most of their horrors have no real meaning, and can doublespeak to whichever demographic likes jump scary horror comedies. One or two big name actors to attract the groupies, and bam, “small budget” transmuted into cash machine…
I don’t think that’s fully case for this pre-into-pandemic 2020 “fun horror” flick. But a 6MM budget, and 16MM in the box office is a nice 10 million profit…
Get Out cost 4.5MM and netted over 250MM globally…
That’s like a 55x return for Get Out, and a 1.2x return for Freaky… money does sometimes convey signals…
I wouldn’t say it’s not worth a watch… just be mindful.
When the credits role, a small army of filmmakers and prop masters and key grips and countless other names are the ones who toiled (well the actors were pampered and toiled too).
Vaughn’s playacting a high school girl, line saying “I’ve got balls? Balls kinda suck?” and doing cheerleading dances is truly some of his finest acting, and I’ve seen The Internship, Maid, Wedding Crashers, and heard his narration of the Art of Conflict…
He’s probably a “good guy”: this isn’t a hit piece on Vaughn or any of the actors…
Writers: some perpetuate norms, and/or alter them… these two just didn’t alter them enough to satisfy a true progressive cause. They sold out for something white streaming subscribers could be sold to watch (thank god the police and ambulance will come to their rescue with just a scream!), while also happening to cater to “all demographics” (queer, black, and young clever precocious minds that outwit the dumb adults failures).
Scary masked liberal edgy surface, hidden behind the spooky horror mask Vaughn's (if he brushed his teeth and shaved, white normal dude looking demeanor / potential to be listened to and understood but only while possessed by a high school girl) murder character needlessly hides behind while an ancient Aztec cultures misused Magical freaky-Fridaying shabby alien looking skull knife, is really the cause behind all this terror and mayhem and horror.
And the credits roll… thanks to the non-progressive money chasing wonderful writers:
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