Happy Death Day Review
PG-13 for violence/terror, crude sexual content, language, some drug material, and partial nudity
Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions
1 Hr and 36 Minutes
Dir: Christopher Landon | Writers: Scott Lobdell, Christopher Landon
Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, Charles Aitken, Rob Mello
INTRO: Horror is becoming more innovative nowadays. Where something may seem so simplistic in concept ends up being great and fun and nobody does it better than Blumhouse. They already released ‘Get Out’ earlier this year and at this point, they have free range to do everything they want, and people will see. ‘Happy Death Day’ is a new example of that. Now the question is, is it good?
Tree Gelbman must relive the same day over and over again on her birthday and figure out who attempts to kill her at her party every time and why. She is killed at the end of each day by a serial killer with a smiling mask obscuring his features. Immediately upon dying, she wakes up again in the morning with full memory of what she's experienced. She decides to catch hold of the apparent killer's identity by noting down the experience that she has every day.
THE GOOD
ROTHE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL OF OUR LIVES
'Happy Death Day' is the big screen leading debut for actress Jessica Rothe (of MTV’s short-lived Mary + Jane), and she gives a fun performance that perfectly matches the comedic tone of the film. For her being in several comedic projects, Rothe brings a charismatic charm to the table that is always energetic and entertaining to watch. You can tell that in preparation for the role, she had to do her homework to get the characteristics down for Tree. With her performance, you get a blend of early Alicia Silverstone from ‘Clueless’ and early Lindsey Lohan from ‘Mean Girls’. She is the center of this movie, and she carries it through and through from beginning to end.
NEW AGE SCREAM
The movie is a horror Sci-Fi comedy that has the heart of mean girls but the cleverness of Scream. If Ryan Murphy’s ‘Scream Queens’ and ‘Before I Fall’ had a love child, ‘Happy Death Day’ would be the offspring. I would say ‘Groundhog’s Day’, but the movie itself makes a meta-joke about it. As a matter of fact, the movie’s best quality that has going for it is the meta humor and silly tone. This plays like a modern day version of ‘Scream’ where it establishes that everything happening in the world is not to be taken so seriously even though there are reoccurrences of death throughout while being self-aware about the situation. At the end of the day, the film wants you to have fun, and director Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) does an effective job onto executing that element. With this being his rather third horror comedy (‘The Marked Ones’ was extremely humorous don’t deny), he finally balances a delicate line between campiness and an intriguing central premise. This is a crowd pleasing comedy with the plot of a horror movie that takes every generic trope of a horror film and adds humor to it while being creative with the story.
In other films of this type, you have the lead who starts off as detestable first and then learning a lesson of how to be a better person through each day they relive. The more Tree dies, the more paranoid she gets and uses every day to her advantage. Just like ‘Before I Fall’ not one day the lead lives feels like the same which makes the film effectively engaging.
THE BAD
With this being a comedy some of the random humor is awkward and jarringly unfunny, but it quickly makes up for it through visual gags or does something inventive. When the film needs to get horrifying, it falls short especially due to its PG13 rating, but just like Landon’s last film, the horrific thrills is the last thing he wants you to worry about. The film features fun action sequences but that cleverness starts to run out of an hour into the story and it shows through farts you can tell a film starts to lose its charm when it makes a fart joke.
WHAT A SCOOOOBY DOOOBY TWIST
The film does have a Scooby-Doo twist towards the end by the final 15 minutes and uh it's more of a take it or leave it cliche. Its strange of how much cliches the film avoids, it falls head-on into that especially at the tail-end of the movie. It does leave a bad taste in your mouth, but it quickly is forgiven by the fact that the rest of this 86 minutes of the film is a ton of fun.
LAST STATEMENT
With a fun leading debut by Jessica Rothe and a cleverly inventive premise that executes across the board, ‘Happy Death Day’ is a fun and campy romp on the horror genre for a new generation for teens that’ll definitely have a great time.
Rating: 3.5/5 | 78%
Super Scene: Death Montage
