WARNING! This post contains extensive spoilers for this movie. Watch the movie before reading! Or don't. You have been warned.
Happy Death Day (2017)
Rated PG-13
IMDB Says: “A college student relives the day of her murder with both its unexceptional details and terrifying end until she discovers her killer's identity.”
IMDB Rating: 6.7/10
Metacritic Rating: 57/100
Rotten Tomatoes: 68% critics, 71% audience
Solee: 3.5/5
Mikey: 4/5
We watched this in the theater.
Solee: We have seen yet ANOTHER October movie in the theater! Did you choose this one just because it was opening day?
Mikey: That’s pretty much it! I ordered a
MoviePass about a month ago when that came around ($9.99 for as many movies as you want per month? Sure!), just to give it a try. They were massively backlogged, and my card just arrived a couple days ago. So I figured we needed to see a movie in the theater, and when I checked, there were no horror movies available, and this was the next one coming up. So here we are! Although I will say I belatedly remembered seeing the trailer for this and had actually been excited to see it, because it’s a fun concept:
Groundhog’s Day serial killer.
Solee: Indeed. It was actually a lot like
Groundhog’s Day with the repeating day, obviously, but also with her need to take a look at herself and deal with some emotional stuff she’s been stuffing away. What did you think of how they handled the basic mechanic of the movie: the time loop?
Mikey: I was a little disturbed when fairly early on, her friend says “wow, so you have unlimited chances” and they just went with that, without considering that she might only get 3 chances, or whatever. Why do you think you know how magic works? Dangerous conclusion. Of course, later I was happy when they addressed that by having this vague and inexplicable notion of her body suffering trauma each time she dies, that would presumably eventually kill her for good. So all in all, that was pretty fun for me. Are there other places this has been done besides
Groundhog’s Day? I know there are… Well, of course TV Tropes has the
ultimate answer list. How do you feel about that stuff?
Solee: Run, Lola, Run! I don’t remember much about that one, but I remember that I liked it. Anyway, I love when storytellers mess with time … except that so many people mess it up in super basic ways. I enjoyed it as a plot device in this movie, but I was super irritated by how sloppy they were with it. She ran across exactly the same things when she spent 10 minutes freaking out in Carter’s dorm room as when she bolted out of there right away. Nonsense. When I can suspend my logical thinking mind long enough, timey-wimey movies are some of my favorite.
I was actually really excited when I realized that they were going to have her suffer some consequences for all the repeated days, but then they totally failed to follow through. It was just disappointing.
Mikey: Pardon me, I was caught up in the TVTropes list. Man there’s a ton of these movies, and I’ve seen so many of them. I was also bothered by how her timing could vary and it didn’t seem to matter. That was just sloppy. But on the flip-side, what I really liked were the multiple ‘endings’, where she kept thinking she had it all worked out and had to go again. It was so absolutely expected that the one long, detailed day where she made up with her dad and did all the other just-right things surely had to be the last one, but it wasn’t. I feel like that was a really good subversion of expectation.
On the other hand, I can recall a certain person in the theater saying they thought they were too old for these kind of movies now. Perhaps that person could elaborate?
Solee: To be clear, that person meant “teenager/college cool kid gets retrospective” type movies. It’s just that so often even the enlightened, I’m-all-grown-up-now end of their arc leaves them in a place that just makes me sigh. For a perfect example: she finally realizes that she’s not a very good person and has some work to do to improve herself. The VERY FIRST THING she does is steal the sunglasses off the guy she’s walked past during a dozen repeats. He doesn’t know it’s a repeat! He can’t POSSIBLY get the “joke” or understand what’s happening beyond “Hey! That girl just stole my sunglasses right off my face!” I’m obviously growing old and stodgy.
Mikey: I have always been that. I call this her Ferris Bueller sequence, and the impression I really got from it (regardless of how ethical or good any of it was) was that it was really designed to hit you hard. Like it was a big “aww yeah!” moment of cool funtimes whee. But it really fell flat for me in that regard, which is where I get the idea that I too am too old. I totally understood how it was supposed to make me feel, but like you, I was more concerned that none of it was particularly good behavior, and it just didn’t have that ‘spark’ I needed to actually identify with her as being this amazing character (not like a great person, but really charming I guess is the word). Like later on when she pours the chocolate milk on the other girl. That’s a classic “bully comeuppance” scene, which is supposed to make you cheer, but it kinda just felt mean. Even though I would agree it’s generally appropriate comeuppance. It just didn’t have the spark!
Solee: Agreed. Actually, I had a big problem with how she handled that whole thing. I liked the tray full of fatty foods, but I think today’s youth have come a long way past dumping chocolate milk on a bully to get even. Bullying is such a prevalent thing and it’s talked about so much, that I wonder if young people would struggle to relate to that scene too. The good ones, that is. It was a bully getting even with a bully, not a good person standing up for someone being bullied. Does that make sense? Like you said, it totally missed the mark. What about the romance aspect? Did you buy the Tree/Carter relationship?
Mikey: That wasn’t bad really. It wasn’t like true love or anything, just a nice guy who did good things for her and obviously liked her, so she was like “hey, seems interesting.” I really did like the one true element of positive self-change she did (which was probably not believable at all, but it’s good Hollywood Magic): when she realized she had to kill herself to undo Carter’s death. On the other hand, it was actually really disturbing when she did it. I had kind of expected her to just do a bad job and let the badguy kill her.
Solee: I’ve been thinking about that, and I think the director was going for the shock value there. Again … it didn’t quite land where I wanted it to land.
Mikey: I think we are on the same page with this whole thing! I really liked it in so many ways, and it should’ve been just great, but it never quite landed with both feet. It all felt a little off, or a little weak.
Solee: I liked the mystery of not knowing who was trying to kill her. And I found the mask just staring at her, all the while knowing there was a person with normal, moving facial features underneath, very unsettling. I did NOT like the reveal, though. They could have sprinkled a couple of little clues and let us feel good about sorta figuring it out as it went along. But literally the only clue was the VERY on-the-nose shot of the cop in the hallway the first time she was in the hospital. Then they ignored the real bad guy completely until Tree saw something on the news and went “OH! I KNOW!” Lazy writing. I hate lazy writing.
Mikey: Okay wait! I caught the cop too, and then later on when she realized that killer was there, I was convinced that the killer was her dad. Meaning she knew he was a serial killer, and that was why she was ignoring his calls.
Solee: YEEESSSS!!!! I THOUGHT THAT TOOOOO!!!! WE HAVE GREAT MINDS!
Mikey: We sure do! I was so disappointed and confused when it turned out he was just some killer (who couldn’t possibly know it was her birthday). But they did fix that, and here is where I flex my great mind: when Tree was locking herself in her room one day, and sat down to eat the cupcake, and saw the creepy birthday card, I knew her roommate was the murderer. AND I knew the cupcake was poisoned! I was so scared when the serial killer showed up that they were dumping a perfectly good plot for random killer from nowhere. So so glad they fixed it.
Solee: Nuh-uh. HOW did you know? I totally didn’t clue into the cupcake thing until it was spelled out for me. *shameface*
Mikey: Totally. When she went to eat it and then got distracted I was like,
oh snap. Plus the birthday card. I mean, it was all there. And the killer was somehow in her locked room, and messing with the remote. They did make it obvious, they just then covered it up with other things.
Solee: You clever boy. I did like that she thought she had it all worked out and couldn’t figure out why she’d looped again until she realized she’d died in her sleep. That was fun.
Mikey: Yeah, there was a lot of clever plot stuff in here. I think the only place they really fell down was in the human stuff. All her quippy little business when she was being Ferris Bueller was just not endearing at all.
Solee: To be completely honest … I think I liked her cupcake poisoning roommate a lot more than her. Maybe even after I knew she was a cupcake poisoning murderer.
Mikey: A MURDERER!!! I actually liked the girl who sat outside the sorority house listening to music the best.
Solee: The Japanese foreign exchange student? That was actually kinda funny. That poor girl just never knew what was happening. After the roommate landed on the sidewalk in front of her, she ran ACROSS her instead of away, though. That was weird.
Mikey: I totally noticed that too, it seemed odd. Perhaps it supports your foreign exchange theory (I thought she was just shy!).
Solee: So … anything else you want to cover before we move on to ratings?
Mikey: I just want to say there’s no way a school would make “The Babies” their team name. That would never go well. “What are you guys, a bunch of… oh right.” That’s my only remaining thought, given the woeful inability to take notes when you watch a movie in theaters. Anything more from you?
Solee: Just that it bugged me to NO END that she never fixed her lipstick even once through the whole movie. She just walked around with post-drinking half-lip lipstick on even after she looked in a mirror. That’s taking continuity TOO FAR.
Mikey: I’m sorry about that. I never noticed at all! I will throw my rating in now: a very fun convoluted series of twists, not scary in the slightest, with a lack of humanity, and a fair amount of comedy. A 4 out of 5. I really did have fun.
Solee: Ooh! This will be fun. I love it when I rate lower than you! I’m giving it a 3.5. I wanted to like it so much … and it clearly wanted to be liked, but it was trying too hard. It was funny, I had a good time, but I wouldn’t go on another date with this movie. It’s just too immature for me.
Mikey: That makes total sense. I will praise it further in this way: I think this is very much the movie
Scream wishes it was. A far better take on very similar style and substance. But other people love
Scream, while I think it’s dull and stupid.
Solee: Happy Death Day will probably go down in history as the greatest time loop horror movie ever made and we’re officially on record as “meh” about it. We’re so uncool.
Mikey: I’m not meh, I gave it a 4! It’s definitely the greatest time loop horror movie featuring a poison cupcake and a baby as a serial killer ever made. I’m sure our next movie will be better, though. Er, what is it?
Solee: I think it might be time for
Get Out (2017).
