Review #49: Happy Death Day (2017)


This review was originally written in October 2017.

Horror Movie October day 23: Happy Death Day

All in all I thought this was a fun movie and I really enjoyed it. That being said, it wasn't incredibly deep and there were a few goofy logistical errors in it but it did some new things that I wasn't expecting. I think it's safe to say that it's only natural to compare this to Groundhog Day- the movie even (briefly) does the same- but inviting that comparison is kind of a risky move because everything the two movies have in common was almost unanimously done better in Groundhog Day.

For anyone who isn't familiar with this film, it's about a college sorority girl who wakes up on her birthday, has kind of a bad day, and then a masked individual shows up and kills her. She wakes up, however, and it's the same day, again. She lives the same day over and over, and each time she gets killed again and again, and so she has to find out who her killer is and how to avoid getting killed.

This movie tries to get the audience to think that in order to stop the cycle, she has to become a better person (very similar to Groundhog Day). Except in Groundhog Day, it's a huge part of the film, and in this one, it's something that's mentioned in the last thirty minutes and ultimately doesn't go anywhere. While the movie certainly doesn't have to explain why or how she's living the same day over and over (neither did Groundhog Day, though an early draft of the GH script did have an unsatisfying explanation), it makes it seem like the loop is somehow tied to her killer; except at least once in the movie, she's killed by someone other than her killer and yet the loop still starts over. Was the movie about evading her killer? Ehh, not really. Was the movie about her becoming a better person? Ehh, not really. So what exactly WAS the movie about?

The movie does still do some interesting things, though. Unlike Groundhog Day, the main character has residual physical effects from each time she's died, which kind of raises the stakes. The movie also does a pretty good job of deflecting suspicion about who the killer is- I had an inkling early on about who the killer was (and in the end I was right) but pretty quickly they made me think it was someone else, and then someone else, and by the time it was finally fully revealed I didn't feel like anything was ruined, so good job to them.

Good movie, and I recommend you all see it!

Final Rating: 9/10 Hazed Freshmen

Worst Name for a Protagonist Ever: Tree

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review #153: The Endless (2018)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #8 - The Endless (2018) A disclaimer: Most of this review is going to be me complaining about the logistics and mechanics of this movie, and it's going to be full of spoilers. I'll try to summarize my non-mechanical thoughts as concisely as possible. The Endless is an interesting film created by writing/directing duo Benson and Moorhead. Apart from Spring (which to my knowledge doesn't fit into this film's universe, though I could be mistaken) this was the first Benson & Moorhead joint I'd seen, and I was instantly intrigued by the premise: two brothers escaped a cult ten years ago, and after hearing that the cult was seemingly getting ready to kill themselves, they go back for one last visit to get some closure. When they get there, they realize that the cult's supernatural beliefs seem to be true, and they get caught up in a strange web of timey-wimeyness under the u...
Read more

Review #259: Strangeland (1998)

Image
This review was originally written in October 2023. Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #13 - Strangeland (1998) Strangeland follows a detective, Mike, whose daughter gets abducted, raped, and tortured by CaptHowdy (played by Snider), a local sadist with an obsession for body modification (tribal tattoos, extensive piercings, and even self-torture used to achieve enlightenment) who uses 90s chat rooms to find and lure victims. After getting a lead when someone discovers and recognizes CaptHowdy's septum jewelry at a crime scene, we're treated to the most absurd cat-and-mouse game I've ever seen between Mike and the kidnapper: Mike finds CaptHowdy in a chat room while posing as his niece, and CaptHowdy looks at Mike's fake profile. Mike changes his profile to include one of CaptHowdy's interests, and CaptHowdy immediately notices the change and somehow automatically recognizes it as an indicator that Mike is actually a cop conducting a sting operation. When the st...
Read more

Review #268: Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

Image
This review was originally written in October 2023. Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #22 - Thir13en Ghosts (2001) Thirthirteenen Ghosts is a film about Arthur, a down-on-his luck widower, who finds out that his weird uncle Cyrus has died and left his state-of-the-art mansion to him and his children (and his live-in nanny I guess). But when they move in, it turns out that the house isn't just a house- it's an infernal machine with twelve ghosts trapped inside with a mechanism that's going to open a portal to hell or something, and the only way to stop it is for Arthur to sacrifice himself (and become the thirteenth ghost). But there may be more at play than just a dead uncle's plot... First things first, while I think there's a lot that's really cool about this movie, I do need to say right at the top that it's a bad movie. The writing has its moments but is ultimately a bunch of nonsense, the acting is over-the-top from every single person on screen, t...
Read more