Essay: Why I love ‘Freaky’ (and its heartfelt gender politics) -

I didn’t expect to feel so much during Freaky. Its playful garishness, from lavish color schemes, gory setpieces, and reapplication of Freaky Friday, Scream, and Friday the 13th, was right up my alley. For the record, the trailer doesn’t not do it justice, and I was completely floored by how much heart throbs at its gooey center. Christopher Landon’s latest slasher riff fits snuggly in the same stylish framework as his two Happy Death Day films, while going hard into the pavement to talk about gender identity and sexuality and that confusing teeter-totter when you’re a teenager.

With a script co-written with Michael Kennedy, Freaky is one of the queerest films I’ve ever seen ⏤ and that’s largely owed to Josh, played with delightful perfection by Misha Osherovich (The GoldFinch, NOS4A2), a nonbinary actor who uses they/them pronouns. You see, Josh is one of Millie’s (Kathryn Newton, The Society) best friends, alongside Nyla (Celeste O’Connor), and while banking hard into gay stereotypes, he’s also a celebration of queerness and being comfortable in one’s own skin. “It’s a slaughterhouse!” he proclaims with amused attitude when four of his classmates are found dismembered. It’s seemingly heartless, but such a dark sense of humor eases the tension Milie and Nyla feel. He knows exactly how to comfort the two people he cares most about in the world. I imagine a queer kid in small town America seeing themselves represented in a similiar fashion I did when Sean Hayes gave Jack McFarland life in the 1990s.

Since Will & Grace premiered in 1998, times haven’t changed all that much. 22 years later, we’re still fighting the same fights and just wanting to be heard. It seems we haven’t progressed very far, and then a film like Freaky comes along to totally break the mold. We need representation, especially in our horror, like never before ⏤ and as our understanding of gender expands, so do the characters we can see onscreen. A nonbinary actor playing a flamboyant and unwavering loyal gay best friend could never have happened when I was a teenager.

Freaky wonderfully subverts horror conventions (“You’re black, and I’m gay. We’re so dead!” Josh screams in one of the film’s heart-pounding chase sequences) and recasts the marginalized as the real MVPs. Its obvious Scream-taking cues might read stale to some, and that’s a fair assessment, but an emotional core is what drives this film ⏤ from Josh blossoming into much more than the gay sidekick to Millie’s own transformation, as she comes to terms with her father’s death and a greater understanding of her mother (Katie Finneran), whose devolution into alcoholism causes further rifts in the new family dynamic. When the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn) stabs Millie with an ancient dagger called La Dola, she swaps bodies with the infamous killer, igniting not only the entire narrative but an unanticipated conversation about gender.

The scene that moved me most happens in the thick of the third act. Millie, in the Butcher’s body, has a heart-to-heart with her crush, the chisel-jawed Booker (played by Uriah Shelton), and expresses how unexpectedly empowering it is being in another body. I’m not transgender, but I am nonbinary and have long identified far more with femininity and the female perspective. That kind of joy one feels when you can step out into the world as the truest form of yourself is nearly indescribable, and Freaky manages to squarely hit the bullzeye. The exchange, leading Millie and Booker to make out for the first time, is simply moving.

Thankfully, I was alone in my screening yesterday. I damn near bawled my eyes out from the kind of unbridled elation in seeing so much queerness on the big screen. My 12-year-old self would have loved this movie, and I do, too. 24 hours have passed, and I want to see it another million times. Coincidentally, a few days ago, I made the decision to set forth my own pronouns (Ze/Zir) in the public space in a more active way. I came out in 2017, but I’ve held a real fear about pushing prounouns too much. I see how much hate and bigotray many of my fellow queer folk face, and it just seemed to exhausting. But what is life without change and reclaiming what is rightfuly ours. I’m ready to take up some room.

Freaky, also squeezing in lines about using proper pronouns, makes me feel seen for the first time in a very long time.

Go seet it. Please.

(PS: totally unrelated to anything, but I want Millie’s red leather jacket so bad!)