Happy Death Day

The Groundhog Day of horror films

Directed by: Christopher Landon
Written by: Scott Lobdell
Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine

I saw Happy Death Day last year and cannot believe I never wrote about it! Since we’re in October (or as I call it: Halloween Month) I figured it would be fun to revisit this film.  I really wanted to like this movie, and I’m really glad I got the chance to see it in theaters. Happy Death Day is fun for those who enjoy horror and murder mysteries.

It’s Tree Gelbman’s (Rothe) birthday, and she wakes up in a bedroom she’s never seen before. Hungover and unsure if she slept with the random guy Carter (Broussard). She leaves his room annoyed by the fact that she’ll have to come up with a story as to why she didn’t come back to her sorority house the night before. When she gets back, her roommate remembers her birthday and gives her a nice birthday cupcake to celebrate.  In a glimpse into who Tree is, she throws the cupcake away.

Tree is a not a good person at all. Just about everything she does demonstrates that. It’s almost hard to feel bad for her when she gets murdered. Oops! Spoilers. But not really. That night while waking back home, she falls into a trap and is murdered. In the blink of an eye she wakes up terrified. She sees Carter again and is caught in bewilderment by the vivid dream. The morning plays out exactly verbatim as her dream.

As Tree relives the events of the day she just dreamed, she becomes more aware that everything has already happened. She’s suspicious but not entirely convinced that the dream was not a dream but something that really happened. Again she plays out her day and makes small adjustments to how she responds to people who treat her like the mean girl she is.

At the end of the day she’s back to the situation she got caught in before but still gets murdered. Blink. Tree wakes up in Carter’s room, but this time she’s freaking out. Everything happens the same way it happened twice before. This happens again and again, and Tree is determined to get out of the loop and starts implementing ways to find out who murdered her and to stop it.

Happy Death Day is a film I’d watch again and again. If you’ve ever seen the film Groundhog Day and liked it, you’ll appreciate Happy Death Day. Although it’s marketed as a horror film, there are a lot of funny bits throughout that change the character. By the end, I was really satisfied by the character arc the writers had done with Tree. It was fun trying to figure out who was murdering her, and why, and when I thought I had it, I was wrong.

If you’re looking for a slasher or gore film you may be wanting more. Some of the death scenes are creative but not really gory. I don’t recall seeing a lot of blood in the film either, but then again, it’s been a year. All in all Happy Death Day is worth watching simply because it’s entertaining.