Happy Death Day Review

The "Groundhog Day" formula has been quite the popular formula to follow in Hollywood. That, of course, is being stuck in some sort of time loop until you learn a lesson or figure out how to overcome some sort of obstacle. The most recent example of this formula being "Edge of Tomorrow," which was a sci-fi version of "Groundhog Day" where audiences got to watch Tom Cruise die over and over in a D-Day like scenario until he figured out how to win the war against the alien army. And now we have the movie "Happy Death Day" hoping to feed off that success by bringing us a comedic horror version of "Groundhog Day." After seeing this premise done so many times, you would think that I would be sick of it by now. For some reason, I'm not. It's a fun premise that somehow gets me every time. Thus when I saw the trailers for "Happy Death Day," I had a childish grin on my face, crossing my fingers that this would be another fun variation of this premise while keeping in the back of my mind that there's a possibility that this could end up as a disaster, like many modern-day horror movies. Lucky for me, this is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all and thus becomes a rather fun sort-of horror film that's worth your time this Halloween season.

In the movie, Jessica Rothe plays a college sorority girl named Tree Gelbman. She wakes up one day in the dorm room of a guy named Carter Davis, played by Isreal Broussard, having not remembered what happened the previous evening. She puts on her shirt, leaves the room, and heads off to class, making sure to be rude and arrogant to everyone in her path, roommates included. Because, you know, that's how we have to have her in this type of movie. We have to watch her learn to be nice to the world. Except she does kind of have an excuse. Today is her birthday, which is not a very happy day for her due to certain family issues. But after living a somewhat normal day for her, she ends up all by herself in a dark part of town where she comes across an individual dressed in black with a baby-face mask, that's apparently the school mascot. That person kills her and then she wakes up back in the dorm room of Carter Davis. And what do you know. It's the same day again. At the end of each ensuing day, the crazy person with the baby face mask is waiting for her to kill her again. Why trap her in a time loop instead of kill her for good? I don't know. The movie doesn't really answer that question. This is the type of movie where certain things you just have to accept.

Because of that, there's a few ways you can look at this movie. You can take it super seriously and complain at all the logical fallacies present in the movie. Why is she in a time loop? I don't know. Why doesn't she use one of her lives to de-mask the killer to figure out who he/she is? I don't know. When the mystery is revealed, does it make sense when you think back on the rest of the movie? Probably not. Is it kinda silly that it follows the "Groundhog Day" formula to a t, with a "Groundhog Day" reference thrown in there? Yeah. But here's the thing I'd say to you if you did take that route with this movie. The movie itself doesn't take itself seriously at all, so it's a bit unfair for you to do so. This is a very self-aware movie that simply decides to have a ton of fun with a silly premise, thus I think it can be enjoyed if you try to sit back, relax and just have fun. That's exactly what I did and it was a very enjoyable ride. I imagine the writers had a lot of fun writing this screenplay. I imagine the director had fun bringing it to life. And I definitely know that the lead actors had a ton of fun in their roles. Jessica Rothe completely owns this role by going all in on whatever she was told to do, thus she ends up carrying this whole movie on her back and you can't help but like her.

It's also worth noting that this isn't really a horror film. If you're whole purpose of going into this movie was to be scared beyond reason, you're going to walk out really confused and disappointed that you were instead treated to a light-hearted comedy. Sure, there were a few creepy moments when the baby-faced killer shows up and quite a bit of attempted jump scares that I never bit at. But this is not a scary movie and I don't think it was trying to be, so I'm not going to fault it for that. If you thought it looked scary based on the trailers, then get mad at the advertising if you want, which I do admit was a bit deceiving. When I first watched this trailer, I thought for sure this was going to be a dark, creepy, hard R-rated film, thus I was surprised when it was given a PG-13 rating. No, this is not a graphic, bloody film. Every time our girl gets stabbed or killed, the camera either cuts away or jumps to her waking up. The one censored f-bomb in the trailer is the only f-bomb in the movie. And the scene where she is walking around naked in the trailer is not any more graphic than it is in the trailer. You see her bare shoulders from the front and bare back from the rear. So yeah, a lot of trailer bait shots to trick teenagers into thinking this is a risque movie, but it's not.

My biggest gripe that I had while watching the movie is that it seemed like it was going to end a specific way and I don't think I would've been happy with that specific ending. I don't want to dive into specifics with this, but right when I started to grumble and complain at how they decided to wrap this up, they turned the corner slightly and went a bit of a different direction and that direction was enough to please me. Is this a movie that I plan on owning and watching every Halloween for the rest of my life. No. When you compare it to "Groundhog Day" and "Edge of Tomorrow," it doesn't get very close to that. I don't know if I even have a huge desire to watch it a second time, but if I have family or friends that are curious enough to check it out, I'll happily sit down and enjoy the movie with them. It's a fun, enjoyable ride as long as you don't take it too seriously. If you are wanting dark, scary and serious, go watch "IT." If you want fun and enjoyable, then check out "Happy Death Day." If you are poor or have no time to head out to the theaters this Halloween, then don't be too upset that you missed this. Find it on Netflix or rent it at Redbox sometime. That's perfectly acceptable. You're not missing "the movie of 2017." My grade for "Happy Death Day" is an 8/10.