Happy Death Day (2017)

"Iiiiiit's my birthday, and I don't have to pick up the phone!"

This movie was sold to me as Groundhog Day (1993) meets Scream (1996). If that doesn't sell you on this movie, nothing will.

Summary:

Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) is having the worst birthday, ever. Again, and again, and again. You see, some creepy dude in a baby mask keeps killing her. And she keeps waking back up in that rando dude's (Israel Broussard) dorm room. Why is someone killing her? Why does she keep coming back? Why is this college's mascot a baby?

Pros:

Archetype Transition: Tree starts out the movie as the classic "Nasty Bitch" horror trope. She's usually one of the first to die, and usually a kind of gimme for the audience: you kind of WANT her to die. Jessica Rothe plays this type well: she is selfish and heartless and her first few murders almost feel cathartic. But, by the end of the movie, Tree transitions into a new archetype. She becomes The Final Girl: she becomes the avenging warrior that hunts the hunter. And Rothe plays that transition really well. She plays that transition while never fully forgetting WHO Tree is; she just lets Tree evolve. Rothe anchors this movie, and it would not work even half as well if she weren't as good an actress as she is. I'd never heard of Rothe before this movie, but, after seeing it, I am hoping she gets more work.

A Novel Conceit: Horror movies are pretty stock: their characters are archetypical and their plots are fairly straightforward morality plays. Every horror movie worth its salt has a conceit, though. A twist on the formula that makes it stand out. Happy Death Day's conceit is that our heroine keeps waking up on the day that she dies, after she gets murdered. Again, and again, and again. This really reinforces the idea that horror films are supposed to be morality plays: Tree keeps getting forced to relive this day until she changes her behavior. I had a lot of fun with it. The movie gets some mileage out of the hilarity of that situation, but still manages to root Tree's transformation, and the horror of that situation, in some genuine pathos.

PG-13: This movie doesn't revel in its gore, and it doesn't needlessly shower the screen in sex and nudity. I didn't notice until I looked it up after the movie that it was rated PG-13. I liked that. I think the idea of watching someone get brutally, disgustingly murdered again and again would have made me sick, eventually. Happy Death Day doesn't utilize excessive blood and viscera, but that doesn't mean that Tree's murders are less thrilling or effective. Filmmaker, Christopher Landon, wisely handles the film's deaths and avoids the Hard R rating he easily could have scored. That is a bold movie for a horror movie. Especially considering that many fans of the genre live for the splatter. Landon, and screenwriter Scott Lobdell, allow their movie to survive on the strength of its story rather than the flow of its entrails. This movie proves that you can make a PG-13 movie that is still very effective and thrilling.

The Frat Boy: During Tree's second murder, she is fighting the killer in a frat-house room. They have tumbled onto the bed. A drunk fratboy stumbles into the door, assays the scene before him, and then blithely walks back out, shutting the door behind him. This joke was pitch fucking black. The suggestion here being that he assumed this girl was just being raped, and he was fine with it. That blew my fucking mind: that the filmmakers would just make that statement, and that it would be kept in the movie. Horror films are morality plays, and Happy Death Day's got some teeth in its satire.

The Baby Mask: A good slasher film needs a good slasher. And, let's face it, a good mask, these days, is hard to find. Happy Death Day kits its killer out in a a cartoonish baby mask. It is instantly recognizable, hilarious, and a bit horrifying.

Cons:

The Movie Doth Protest Too Much: There is a bit too much going on. Even at 96 minutes, I feel like this movie could have lost a solid ten minutes, to make it real lean and mean. We get a scene with Tree and her dad that, while it gives Tree a great monologue about how she's changed her ways, ultimately doesn't need to be in the movie. There are red herrings, like the baby mask in the doctor's desk, that never pay off. There was a moment, early on, where I thought that maybe EVERYONE was trying to kill her. When the killer was revealed to be some escaped mental patient that we literally meet for the first time some hour or so into the movie, I was a little disappointed. The film also suggests that Tree has recurring wounds: each death is taking its toll on her body. But then the film never really capitalizes on it. I would have loved some kind of in-movie mechanic that let us know how many lives she had left. To give the proceedings real stakes. That, or I would have loved a super montage of all the myriad ways she died, to give us the real Groundhog Day parallel: by the time she faces off with the killer, how many days has she lived like this? How many years? In the end, the things the movie gets right shine so bright that they really contrast the things it gets wrong, and makes them stand out all the more for it.

In Conclusion:

I had a great time with this movie. It was so much better than it had any right being. With a fresh spin on the tried-and-true horror formula, Happy Death Day is funny and even a bit harrowing. As long as that's why you are here, you won't be disappointed.

Should You Watch It?

Yeah, I think you should. It's short, fun, and offers an interesting new take on the typical slasher genre. As of this viewing, though, it isn't streaming for free on any service, so you'll probably end up paying full price for it, which may sway your opinion.

Miscellany:

- This movie was shot with a budget of $4.8 million dollars. It made $122.6 million at the boxoffice. Boy, howdy. 
- VXF artists, Tony Gardner, designed the baby mask for this film. He is slasher film royalty, having previously designed the Ghostface mask for the Scream series.
- The original ending of the movie involved Tree succumbing to her repeated injuries, after being murdered by a nurse revealed to be Dr. Gegory's wife. Tree was having an affair with Dr. Gregory, and the wife killed Tree in revenge. Thus starting a new loop. This ending tested very poorly with audiences, who felt that it undermined Tree's journey. A new ending was shot and became the film's theatrical ending.
- The movie was originally slated to be produced in 2007, with Megan Fox in the lead. Christopher Landon was hired to rewrite Scott Lobdell's script. Years later, the script was sold to Blumhouse productions and greenlit, with Christopher Landon in the director's chair.
- In the film's trailer, Tree's ringtone is 50 Cent's "In Da Club." The production could not afford the rights to the song, and had to create an original ringtone. I believe that the new ringtone is a lot of fun, and it grew on me throughout the film.
- A sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, has been slated for a 2019 release.