May 082017
 
3,5 reels

A snotty, nasty sorority girl (Jessica Rothe), who is obnoxious to her roommate and cruel to every guy she meets, and is sleeping with her married professor and ignoring her father, is murdered by a killer who wears a baby mask. She then wakes up just as she had the day before, and lives the day over, only to be murdered again. And again. And again.

Well, that was a surprise. A Slasher that is fun, clever, and well made. Huh.

I hate to say what everyone else has said, but Happy Death Day is Groundhog Day as a Slasher. And while that sounds like a reasonable idea, it plays out much better than expected. Slashers are all about the kills, but those kills often pale because we don’t know or care about who is getting killed. So here we get the same person getting killed over and over again. We know her, so it matters. And as she gets up again, we get as many kills as can be fit into ninety minutes.

Our lead, named Tree for no good reason, but also no bad reason, is a handful of Slasher stereotypes, but she wears them so well. You’ve seen characters like her before, but never done so well. Rothe owns the part and the film. This girl is a star. She has charisma to spare. When she was doing the most horrible, petty things, I still liked her, which means I was completely onboard with her arc. I wanted her to learn and grow, not to mention survive. Film isn’t about plot; it is about character and sometimes it doesn’t matter if it has all been done before if it is done better. And how often does the slutty girl in a Slasher get to be the hero?

The rest of the cast of mainly newcomers is nearly as good as Rothe, which means credit needs to go to the director. Who knew the guy who wrote the Paranormal Activity moves would be a skilled director? And that shows not only in his ability to get good performances, but in the shots. This is a low budget horror film, and it doesn’t look it.

Beyond an ample display of talent, Happy Death Day works because it knows what it is. It knows that Slashers are brain dead by nature and we are all familiar with Groundhog Day. So it doesn’t try to pretend it isn’t a Groundhog Day ripoff, but dives into that. It doesn’t act like Slashers are scary or clever or are anything more than murder porn. Instead it plays with all that, ending up as much a dark comedy as a horror film. Within the genre it has chosen, it couldn’t have been much better. Okay, it should have been R-rated. One gag would have worked much better with nudity and a bit more blood would have given it a bit of a kick, but that’s being picky. Happy Death Day is one of the best Slashers you’ll ever see.