Happy Death Day
Blumhouse
Can we first all agree that it was a shitty move to put the spoiler for the ending of the first film in the trailer for the second? Yes, this film has been out for two years, but for those of us waiting for the film to be released for rental or put online, this was a travesty. (Also, I don’t like spoilers on films released one hundred years ago let alone two.) Second, it did not detract from the film for me. There are so many red herrings, false suspects, dangling plot lines, and zany comedy galore that it’s hard to care who the killer is. The screenplay also does a great job of fully explaining how the killer could be everywhere in all subsequent time loops without there being a supernatural element. It’s kind of a great puzzle, though building this mystery takes away from the horror.
The film follows college student Tree (Rothe) through a day in the life of a hard hearted, mean girl who hates that it’s her birthday. Tree is unexpectedly murdered by a masked killer and she must relive the day continually until she finally unmasks the killer. She often leans on her one-night stand Carter (Broussard) for help in untangling the web of madness. There are plenty of suspects to choose from as Tree constantly acts mean, gets drunk, blows off dates, and sleeps with her professor. As she lives through the day repeatedly, she comes to realize that her mother’s long-ago death broke her emotionally, and she subsequentially tries to become a better person.
While I enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the film, I would not say that it is at all scary, gory, or weird. It’s barely horror. It’s a PG-13 film that works more as a mystery thriller, that pays homage to Groundhog Day and Sixteen Candles, than it is a slasher film. Many have been making parallels to Scream, which is ultimately unfair, as that film was a meta commentary on the life’s work of director Wes Craven and a frightening film in and of itself. While I enjoyed this film for its character development and mystery, it was simply not true horror, which was disappointing.
While the film’s producer, Blumhouse, has been cranking out prestige films lately (like Whiplash, Get Out, and Blackkklansman) they still rely on basic yet well directed fare (like Insidious, Unfriended, and The Purge). Though this is a wackier, teen-friendly horror vehicle, it has fast become one of the studio’s highest grossing properties and has spawned a soon-to-be-released (next week) sequel with the two leads returning. I will of course watch it, because while the original plays a lot of the action straight this sequel promises to be the goofy, over the top trainwreck that the original’s trailer promised and did not deliver on. It will be a great Valentine’s day.
