One of the more underrated genre films to arrive last year was Christopher Landon’s Freaky, with the horror veteran managing to put a fresh spin on the tired body swap trope by refitting the concept as the basis for a slasher comedy, and he was helped massively by a fantastic Vince Vaughn performance, as the actor threw himself into the dual roles of feared serial killer and confused teenage girl with equal aplomb.
Despite facing the ravages of the Coronavirus pandemic, Freaky was a critical and commercial hit, with the movie currently sitting on an impressive 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes, while it topped the domestic box office for two weeks and wound up earning over $15 million in theaters on a budget of just $6 million.
Landon is also the creative mind behind the successful Happy Death Day franchise, and even admitted that the two Blumhouse properties existed in the same world. The former’s Jessica Rothe said in a recent interview that she’d love to share the screen with the latter’s Kathryn Newton, and in a separate interview, the director of both revealed that a crossover is more likely to happen than a straightforward Freaky sequel.
“In terms of a sequel to Freaky, you know, I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen, because I honestly don’t know if the studio has an appetite for a sequel. I think they’re quite comfortable with it being a standalone movie, and to be honest, I am too, because we didn’t really have an idea for a sequel. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, this has to be the continuation of this story’, whereas with the Happy Death Movies movies they kind of had a whole life after that, but you never know. You never know what can happen. I would love to see, you know, Millie and Tree in a movie together. But I just don’t know what that movie is.”
Freaky didn’t exactly end on a note that set it up for multiple further adventures, and Happy Death Day 3 has been sitting on the back burner for a couple of years now, so a crossover could be a way to bring audiences the best of both worlds. Quite how the two concepts might collide is anyone’s guess, but you could imagine Rothe’s Tree Gelbman either teaming up with Newton’s Cassie, or even the murderous Blissfield Butcher repeatedly killing Tree on her birthday, with Cassie the only one that knows how to stop him.
Published: Feb 9, 2021 08:19 am