serial murder, teenage girls and a ludicrously good Vince Vaughn

• Dir: Christopher Landon. Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O’Connor, Misha Osherovich, Dana Crori, Katie Finneran, Alan Ruck. 15 cert, 98 min

In the teen movie canon, two Fridays loom above the rest. One is Friday the 13th, the date traditionally associated with Jason Voorhees’s knife-wielding rampages, and the other is Freaky Friday, on which Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster (or, if you’re younger, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan) switch bodies and mother-daughter roles for 24 hours.

Freaky, the new horror comedy from Christopher Landon, combines these two premises so cunningly that watching it feels like your first taste of a classic cocktail: you already knew the parts worked well neat, but who would have thought they’d blend as deliciously as this?

The setting is the usual leafy, insular, small American town, where a mad serial killer, the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), is at large. During an evening massacre at a mansion festooned with antiques, he happens upon an ancient ceremonial dagger, possessed of magic powers that bring an unexpected twist to the following night’s murder. Upon skewering his next victim, a mousy teenager called Millie (Kathryn Newton), the pair swap consciousnesses, and each wakes the following morning in the other’s bed – and head.

Now Millie (Vaughn), whose photofit is a constant, glowering presence on the news, must evade the police for 24 hours, convince her friends Nyla (Celeste O’Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich) of her improbable predicament, retrieve the enchanted blade and reverse the curse before it sticks. Oh, and waylay the Butcher (Newton) wherever possible, since his new identity allows him to stroll into the local high school with impunity, and mingle with a plentiful supply of victims.

This droll premise lays the foundations for a savage, sawtoothed farce, in which every possible configuration of outrageous happenings is diligently worked through by Landon and Michael Kennedy’s screenplay, and bathed by cinematographer Laurie Rose in a knowingly retro glow. The killings themselves are both numerous and inventive, but they represent only one aspect of the squirm-inducing fun.