written by Juan Ayala





I think the most accurate description of Happy Death Day is “Groundhog Day meets Scream”.





After a night of drunken partying, Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up in the dorm room of a fellow college student, Carter (Israel Broussard), whose name she doesn’t remember. After some rude remarks and she goes through her day, we learn that Tree isn’t a very nice person. She insults and blows off Tim, a seemingly nice guy she went on a single date with, and when her roommate finds out it’s her birthday, which Tree has tried to keep a secret, she is more upset and annoyed about it than grateful. Tree heads to class, taught by a handsome British professor and we find out that he is having an affair with her. The two are nearly caught when professor Butler’s wife interrupts Tree’s steamy visit to Butler’s office. Later that night, Tree is stalked on her way to a party by a knife-wielding baby face-masked psychopath, who chases her down and fatally stabs her.





Tree wakes up back in the dorm room thinking she just had a bad dream. Her entire day plays out the same way and she brushes the coincidences off as déjà vu. On her way to the party, she takes a different route and walks in to her surprise party. When she goes upstairs to hookup with a guy, the masked ‘Baby Face’ shows up and kills Tree again. Tree is once again awoken in Carter’s dorm room and starts to panic and she’s reliving the same day over again and always ends up getting killed.









I’ll avoid redundancies: Carter tells Tree to try and figure out who it is that’s killing her before they actually do it and maybe she’ll be able to stop the ‘time loop’. We learn a lot about Tree during all of this, including that she and her late mother share the same birthday, and she keeps it a secret in order to avoid celebrating a day she used to share with her mother. She reunites with her father, who she’s blown off in every ‘day’ we see, and comes to terms with her mother’s death.





I won’t give away the ending as I really want everyone to see this movie! It isn’t overtly graphic as some horror movies tend to be nowadays and there are plenty of laughs along with the rather whacky premise. I think it’s safe to say that Jessica Rothe is this generation’s Scream Queen. From the b*tchy attitude, her sarcastic remarks and her emotional, terrified performances throughout, Rothe is outstanding. A character you started off really not liking, you end up rooting for by the end of the movie. Rothe’s co-star, Israel Broussard,, is charming and loveable in his performance as the nice guy who got lucky, Carter. He grows to care for a girl he just met and he isn’t the typical jock or jerk-turn-love interest we usually see.





The cast is rounded out by Rachel Matthews as Tree’s sorority sister Danielle, Ruby Modine as Tree’s roommate Lori, Caleb Spillyards as Tim, Tree’s hunky but clingy one night stander, Charles Aitken as professor Gregory Butler and Phi Vu as Carter’s roommate Ryan. Happy Death Day was written and directed by Christopher Landon who also wrote Paranormal Activity 2, 3, 4 and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones as well as Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and Viral. The film was also produced by Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, who also produced some of the most recent horror hits including Get Out, Split, The Purge: Election Year and Hush.



