Q&A with Michael Kennedy, writer of FREAKY (2020)
FREAKY made its festival debut this weekend at the Renegade Film Festival at the Earl Smith Strand Theater in Marietta, GA, despite releasing in 2020.
If you’re unfamiliar with FREAKY, it combines the premises of FRIDAY THE 13TH with FREAKY FRIDAY, in which the giant strongman serial killer The Butcher (Vince Vaughn) tries to murder sweet, dorky, bereaved high-school student, Millie (Kathryn Newton) with an ancient dagger that curses them to live in each other’s bodies. It has all the makings of an excellent comedy, which it is. It even won the Breaking Barriers Lizzie Award at the culminating ceremony Saturday night—which, by the way, is the dopest trophy you’ll ever see.
Okay this is cute and lovely. pic.twitter.com/yU7MOVtkI5
— Michael Kennedy (@MichaelKenKen) March 6, 2022
After the screening ended with full applause, Fright School podcast co-hosts Josh and Joe hosted a Q&A with the film’s writer, Michael Kennedy. What follows is an abridged version of that community interview, which has been edited for clarity. And by the way, if you haven’t seen FREAKY yet, you’re gonna want to do that—not only because it’s great, but also because here there be spoilers.
Lots of Queer writers have the experience of “writing their way Out.” Is that what happened in your life with horror?
I was a late horror lover. I didn’t start watching till I was 16 because I grew up in a conservative, Irish-Catholic household, so we weren’t allowed to watch Rated R movies, but I saw SCREAM some afternoon, and within the first five minutes I had an actual physical reaction of, I hate this…but I love it. So by the time…it’s a 25 year old movie… but by the time Drew Barrymore gets killed, I was like, I’m obsessed with this. By the end of the movie, I was like, This is life changing. Not only because Sidney Prescott is just…I remember sitting in the theater, in the closet, I was 16, I didn’t know yet what I was or who I was, only that I was something different, and I was so drawn to her. Quiet and fierce, like I was watching myself on screen. I turned to one of my friends when I walked out of the theater and said, “I’m gonna make something like this one day.”
One thing we’re always curious about is how you got where you are now. What was the process like for creating FREAKY?
It took a while to find my footing in LA. I worked in production 7-8 years. When I pitched Chris Landon the movie, it was a practice. I was supposed to pitch to Blumhouse by myself, but he was Chris was pitching me these really awesome jokes, and I asked him finally, “Do you want to do this with me?”
We took it to Blumhouse because of Chris’ relationship with them (and I was doing a podcast with them at the time). We said that Chris wanted to direct it as soon as possible. You have the weekend, and then on Monday we’re talking to other studios.
They bought it within 72 hours—we didn’t even get to pitch it to the other studios, which is very rare. Because of how fast they bought it, they were really supportive. In fact, Jason Blum read the script and was texting Chris like, Holy shit! The audience is gonna go nuts! The only thing we really had to answer to them about was budget. We started off with 22 kills, and we had to cut it in half. I learned a lot in that sense from Blumhouse. I learned to write toward a budget. And we wrote everything together, even though he tells everyone that it’s my story. I was there every day on set, and he let me weigh in on the casting.
Chris had a similar upbringing. He’s the son of Michael Landon, and he had a very tough Queer upbringing, and he took a lot of our love for slashers and tried to do a little bit different. We wanted 16-year-olds now to have the movie we wanted as 16-year-olds.
This movie is an homage to my dad, and even though we made the film more friendship-focused, we still had the grieving family as the emotional basis.
About the character Josh…he’s so complex!
We didn’t want a Coming Out story. Our main goal of him was finally show a character in a horror movie, in a slasher movie, who is so 100% themselves…and quite honestly, we wanted to make him a little problematic. We didn’t want Puritanical Queer characters, to feel like our Queer characters had to be perfect to have proper representation. They get to say and do stupid shit, too. The asshole character is usually played by a straight jock, so it was really fun to have these two Queer kids running around.
We always describe Josh as one step ahead of everybody else. He knows as soon as he graduates, he’s off to bigger and better things. So while he’s stuck in Blissfield, he’s just having fun.
We watched over 200 tapes for Josh, until we saw Misha [Osherovich]. He had a very clear idea of what he wanted the character to be. I’m 38, and I think Misha was 26 at the time. He brought a lot of really cool lingo that doesn’t sound like lingo. He had a good knack for saying, “This sounds a little—no offense—this sounds a little 40.” Celeste [O’Connor] who plays Nyah and Misha who plays Josh were such gems to find. We knew we wanted Kathryn for Millie and Vince for the Butcher.
Tell us about the backseat makeout scene!
(this was the question I asked! It was my favorite scene in the film—I mean, any time you have a movie with teenagers in it, and there’s a back seat…it follows the same rules as Chekhov’s gun, more or less, right? It’s got to go off!)
I fucking love it. Chris and I were like, Should they? Should they? Should they? They’re kissing! Absolutely kissing! Fuck everybody.
Chris knew that we wanted to shoot seriously, not for a laugh. It is very funny, but when I hear the laugh, I can tell whether people are laughing with it or at it, and they’re definitely laughing with it.
The other aspect of it is Vince asked me about my journey growing up as a Queer kid, and he used it emotionally. He asked me before we shot it if he could. I actually cried during the first take. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Let alone that I was there making a movie, watching my work, watching two dudes kiss.
It was so fun. Vince kept going, One more take! One more take! (Any big laugh was Vince. The handshake, that was all Vince. The “hashtag, what is she doing?” Chris is really good at letting things happen.)
There were supposed to be covers all over the scene, inside the car, outside the windows, but after the first take, Chris just did it as one shot with the slow track-in. He said, I don’t need the coverage.
That’s a great scene. You have this moment with the straight boy in the back seat looking at Millie and seeing her for who she is…
We got the feedback that we needed to add the line, “I don’t care what you look like.” And we were like, “Dude. No. Do you understand what you’re implying? You have no idea…” it was a straight guy. I’m really glad we didn’t add that line.
What’s your favorite kill?
I wrote the first pass of the cold open, but it was just stab deaths. Chris changed it to the wine bottle kill and the toilet seat kill.
Within like 48 hours, I got his rewrite, and I was like, “this is awesome. Oh, this is the kind of movie we want.”
But I actually based the shop teacher on a teacher I had. He asked me in front of the class if I was light in the loafers. He was my science teacher, but I thought we should put them in a shop class. They still have those, right?
The shot of sawing the body in half is the only shot we have because it was the only body we had. It’s my favorite.
What are you working on now?
TIME CUT is in post right now, it’s coming out in 2022. I’ll be a first-time producer of a Christmas slasher that’s shooting in November, and another film with Chris—a gay action comedy.
FREAKY is currently streaming on HBO Max and is available to rent or buy from most digital platforms.
To learn more about Renegade Film Festival, including any upcoming satellite events, please visit their website and follow them on Twitter.
