Ask any baby and they’ll tell you, nothing beats a good formula. When you’ve got a recipe for success, it makes sense to keep replicating it. At least until it stops working.
Which brings me to screenwriter Michael Kennedy, whose last three scripts have been slasher movies with an elevator-friendly pitch, combining the familiar tropes of a popular horror genre with the familiar tropes of a popular movie. The rightly acclaimed “Freaky,” co-written by Christopher Landon, took the plot of “Freaky Friday” and asked “What if it was a slasher?” The unfairly overlooked “It’s a Wonderful Knife” took the plot of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and asked “What if it was a slasher?”
It’s a fun approach to both the horror genre and family friendly movies alike, and setting those stories in the present day allows for clever new twists and characters whose tales were ignored in the past, especially queer characters, whose life experiences and perspectives bring new depth to these nostalgic cinematic canons.
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