The current state of the world made the cinematic release of body-swap horror comedy Freaky a little underwhelming, but it was enjoyed by the large majority of people who actually had the chance to see it. Creator Christopher Landon has already stated that it could exist in the same universe as the Happy Death Days, and those movies’ star, Jessica Rothe, is open to the idea of a crossover.
Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2U see a college student becoming stuck in a time loop where she’s repeatedly killed by a masked murderer on the night of her birthday. Freaky, meanwhile, finds a high school student become the latest target of a serial killer, only for the two of them to swap bodies due to the power of an ancient dagger. Speaking to CinemaBlend, Rothe had this to say of the worlds colliding:
“That would be so insane and so much fun. I’m down. Here’s the thing, like anything that Chris [Landon] comes up with or CinemaBlend pitches it just sounds like a fun, wonderful romp. I think one of the things I love so much about the Happy Death Day movies and what was infused into Freaky, even though it was in such a new and inventive way is those worlds are so fun and filled with humor and heart. Both of those movies have so much heart even though they are funny, dark and so twisted and that’s the reason I think they could overlap. And there is that little bit of unexplained magic, sci-fi twistiness, so I can totally see how maybe Tree and Millie figure some shit out together.”
While the plot of Freaky was set off by cursed magic and Happy Death Day’s time loop was revealed to have a sci-fi origin, the two concepts share more than a little DNA. Both stories are less concerned with the exact cause of their premise, but instead merely use the setup to play with the tropes of slasher movies in fun and inventive ways, each also incorporating a time lock on how long the alteration to reality can last to provide the plot with a sense of urgency for the attractive young blonde at its core to figure out what’s going on and how she can reset things to normal.
Before any crossover can actually happen, though, it will need to be seen how well Freaky performs upon its VOD release later this week, and whether Happy Death Day To Us, the mooted concluding chapter of the trilogy, is declared to be financially viable. Until then, we can only imagine how much fun a story of body-swapping time-travelling serial killers can be.
