Writer-director Christopher Landon seems to be carving out a niche for himself in the arena of high-concept horror. You can essentially sum up all of his movies in a sentence. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse = boy scouts fighting zombies. Happy Death Day = a Groundhogs Day-esque timeloop meets a slasher movie. And then this one: A Freaky Friday-esque body swap meets slasher movie. I’m about as big a fan of Happy Death Day as you’re going to find; I genuinely think it’s a masterpiece and Landon and co here are definitely trying to recapture that magic. And there’s a lot you could unpack here in this weird switcheroo wherein a serial killer ends up in the body of one of his would-be victims and that victim ends up in the killer’s body. Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughan are both good in their dual roles; I think the best of the four (?) lead performances is Newton as waifish teen on the outside, vile serial killer on the inside. The movie understands the incongruity of a tiny blonde girl chasing people twice her size with a butcher knife and they’re going to get some laughs out of it, by God. And they do. But I felt that the movie didn’t do enough with the premise. There was more comedic potential to be found and more, dare I say it, actual social commentary as well. The movie could have gone down some interesting roads in terms of its portrayal of gender, of course, but shouldn’t there be a slapstick sequence of the killer, now trapped in the body of a young teenager, trying and failing to do things because his body is now so much smaller and weaker? And shouldn’t that slapstick sequence then kind of end up actually saying something about power dynamics? But no, once the killer is in Millie’s body, he's able to just continue his killing spree without being really impacted by it. There were probably lessons for Millie to learn too, lessons about perception and confidence, but the movie kind of doesn’t go there either. This isn’t a bad movie. I laughed several times. The performances are all quite good and entertaining; watch especially for Alan Ruck, of all people, to show up as a sneering, mustache-twirling shop teacher. So, it’s not a movie that lives up to Happy Death Day; well, okay, that’s not totally fair, I guess. But it also fails to really live up to its own premise. That’s a little less okay. But, still, it’s light on its feet, high energy and a fun genre mash-up. 3 stars.
tl;dr – body-swap comedy meets slasher movie with fun results, thanks to a game cast; doesn’t quite live up to its potential, but it’s fun. 3 stars.