Happy Death Day

Happy Death Day is the second movie this year to employ the Groundhog Day formula of a teenage girl who has to live the same day over and over until she gets it right, and becomes a better person in the process.  The other film, Before I Fall, treated the plot seriously, and was largely successful.  This movie, on the other hand, is an unapologetically goofy thriller that never manages to take itself seriously, and has a great amount of fun in offing its lead heroine over and over again, just like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow.  If I have to be honest about which of the two films I preferred, I'd have to go with the one where the lead heroine gets stabbed in the neck with a broken bong by a killer wearing a Halloween mask that resembles Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (Spoiler alert: This doesn't happen in Before I Fall.)

Director Christopher Landon (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) lets the audience know what they're in for right off the bat by playfully having the Universal Studios logo play out and then rewind itself and start over three times in a row right as the movie kicks off.  Not only does this tie into the idea of its heroine having to relive the same day over and over, but it gets the audience ready for the silly tone that the movie will embrace.  After that, we're introduced to Tree (Jessica Rothe), a vain and mean Sorority Girl who wakes up from a hangover in a strange student's dorm room.  We get the sense that this is not the first time she has woken up somewhere with no memories, but at least she had the good fortune to wind up in the room of Carter (Israel Broussard), a nice but geeky kid who just wants to help.  She naturally brushes off his attempts, and staggers drunkenly across campus back to her Sorority House, where her fellow Sisters are all too happy to point out that she is sneaking back in during the middle of the day once again.

Tree's routine includes ignoring phone calls from her father, pushing away her well-meaning roommate Lori (Ruby Modine), who was nice enough to make a homemade cupcake for Tree's birthday, and sneaking off to have sex with one of her college professors who naturally happens to be married.  That night, while walking to a party, Tree has a creepy encounter with a mysterious figure who hides their face behind a mask of the college's baby-faced mascot.  The figure quickly turns aggressive, and brutally murders Tree.  However, instead of heading off to the afterlife, Tree finds herself waking up in the same place she did that morning.  She's once again in Carter's room, she's hungover, she staggers drunkenly across campus back home, etc, etc.  After Tree is murdered again by the same mysterious figure that night (though under different circumstances), she wakes up again in the same place and realizes that she is somehow living the same day over and over.  Fortunately, Carter happens to believe her, and is willing to help.  After all, he admits he's seen Groundhog Day.

Thanks to Carter, Tree realizes that she has "unlimited lives", and thus has the chance to try to figure out who her killer is, and if there is a way she can prevent it.  Unfortunately, the list of people who would like to see her dead is quite long, so she has to narrow down the suspects just a little.  This lead to some genuinely funny moments, as Tree spies on her friends (or people who pretend to be her friends), and learns secrets about them.  She also takes advantage of this living the same day over thing by doing some bold actions, such as walking across campus naked.  Happy Death Day is completely self aware of how stupid it is, and has a blast with it.  Screenwriter Scott Lobdell (a comic book writer) unfortunately doesn't exploit the possibilities quite as much as he probably should have.  The murders and deaths that Tree encounters over and over are fairly basic. (I'm sure the film's PG-13 rating contributed to this.) However, he does pull off the neat trick of not only getting off a lot of successful jokes out of the premise, but also making us eventually care about its heroine as the film goes on.

This is something I did not expect, as the movie successfully creates Tree into such a hateful character during the first half hour.  But, even when we're not supposed to like her, the performance by Jessica Rothe (who played one of Emma Stone's roommates in La La Land) shows off her comedic and star potential.  She's fantastic here, showing a broad range of comic and also dramatic potential.  There's a scene late in the film when Tree is trying to make amends with someone important that she has hurt in the past that is genuinely touching in a way.  Based on her performance here, I truly hope she gets some great roles in the future.  I also liked her scenes with Broussard as Carter, her potential love interest.  They share great chemistry, and as they get closer, we actually start to hope that Tree will survive this ordeal so that she can have a normal life with him.  While the movie certainly never gets deep, it does eventually show a real heart to go along with the murders.

When you stop and think about it, Happy Death Day is quite clever.  After all, most slasher movies increase the death count by having the lead hero have a lot of friends who wander off and get killed.  This time, we have the hero get killed over and over, desperately trying to learn from her mistakes.   Sure, the movie doesn't play it as smart as it could have, but if it has to be stupid, at least it figures out how to not only have fun with itself but also make fun of itself at the same time.  Yes, you get the sense that there are some wasted potential here, and another rewrite or two probably would have made it even stronger.  But for what we have, I doubt the teenage horror crowd will complain too much.  Heck, I even ended up liking this a lot more than I expected.

So what if the movie doesn't make much sense, and so what if it's kind of stupid?  At least it has fun with how stupid it is.  Now if it was stupid and was not aware, that would be a reason to pan the film.  But more than that, it's highly entertaining and has a bright sense of humor.  Hmm...Having said that, maybe the movie's smarter than I thought.

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