Director Christopher Landon's HAPPY DEATH DAY (watch it HERE) and HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U (check it out HERE) were both rated PG-13, despite featuring a masked slasher and a whole lot of death. So I figured that his new film FREAKY, a body swap slasher that looks to be in the same vein as the HAPPY DEATH DAY films (and Landon has even said he feels it exists in the same universe as those films), would be rated PG-13 as well. But that's not the case.
FREAKY has been rated R for "strong bloody horror violence, sexual content, and language throughout".
Well, that sounds like fun!
Landon wrote FREAKY with Michael Kennedy. The film stars Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O'Connor, Misha Osherovich, Uriah Shelton, Dana Drori, Katie Finneran, and Alan Ruck.
The synopsis:
This November, on Friday the 13th, prepare to get Freaky with a twisted take on the body-swap movie when a teenage girl switches bodies with a relentless serial killer.
Seventeen-year-old Millie Kessler (Newton) is just trying to survive the bloodthirsty halls of Blissfield High and the cruelty of the popular crowd. But when she becomes the newest target of The Butcher (Vaughn), her town’s infamous serial killer, her senior year becomes the least of her worries.
When The Butcher’s mystical ancient dagger causes him and Millie to wake up in each other’s bodies, Millie learns that she has just 24 hours to get her body back before the switch becomes permanent and she’s trapped in the form of a middle-aged maniac forever. The only problem is she now looks like a towering psychopath who’s the target of a city-wide manhunt while The Butcher looks like her and has brought his appetite for carnage to Homecoming.
With some help from her friends — ultra-woke Nyla (O’Connor), ultra-fabulous Joshua (Osherovich) and her crush Booker (Shelton) — Millie races against the clock to reverse the curse while The Butcher discovers that having a female teen body is the perfect cover for a little Homecoming killing spree.
From the deliciously debased mind of writer-director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, the Paranormal Activity franchise) comes a pitch-black horror-comedy about a slasher, a senior, and the brutal truth about high school.
FREAKY is a Blumhouse production, in association with Divide/Conquer. Jason Blum produced the film, with Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Volturno serving as executive producers.
The film is scheduled to reach theatres on November 13th.