Happy Death Day

‘I’m not a good person Carter - Tree

When watching the trailer for this film I could tell that it was supposed to be horror movie that didn’t take itself too serious and I was fine with that but as I was watching it, it went further from a comedy horror to a typical teen drama.

On Tree’s (Jessica Rothe) birthday she wakes up in the dorm room of her one night stand. Lethargically she gets dressed and makes her way to her sorority house, home to the ‘Kappa bitches’. Then after an eventful day of making out with her teacher, ignoring calls from her father and getting chocolate milk split on her she makes her way to a party. On the way she sees a music box in the middle of a tunnel and then is killed by a man wearing the mask of her school mascot, a baby, and wakes up at the start of that same day until she figures out who kills her.

 I didn’t particularly like Tree as she was only concerned with sex and her image but this gives anyone great motive to kill her. Plus there’s the storyline with her father and her dead mother which isn’t developed but screams cliché so I doubt the writer Scott Lobdell thought he needed to, so it does make me like her a lot less. Also she clearly doesn’t fit in or like the girls in her sorority house much like Ruby Modine’s character Lori so I can’t really figure out why she’s there. Come to think of it many of the girls in the house didn’t seem the typical members of a sorority expect Rachel Matthews who plays Danielle the head of the house.

Once she figures she’s trapped in a time loop Tree keeps going until she figures out who her murderer is and this is where the comedy begins as each death is more comical than the next. I get that her dying is the main gimmick of the film but with each death I felt there was no progress expect forcing me to more so see the film as a teen drama instead of the thriller/horror it was intended to be. When we finally do get to the end and find out who the murderer is it is disappointing just pushed the film over the edge as a teen drama for me as I found her final death to be much better, still very teen but a lot more badass.

 I was left with many questions throughout the film, like how exactly is Tree killed the first two times, if she hated the sorority so much why is she there and finally why her?  Why does she get the opportunity to prevent her death? I mean she doesn’t have such a positive impact on the world. The latter may be answered as there are talks of a sequel that explains why she was sent into a time loop but I’m not so eager to give this plot another hour of my life. But I do want understand how Blumhouse is able to make such hit or miss movies and always hit.

Besides the trailer I really wanted to watch the film as it was produced by Blumhouse which has had great success with films including ‘Split’ and ‘Get Out’, but it just wasn’t what I expected it to be. All of their films have the same unique feel of smart thrillers that have some comedy but they can create polarising opinions but they often still do well at the box office. I don’t know how they do it but I’m fascinated by it.