Happy Death Day (2017) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline: Unlimited amount of lives, unlimited amount of chances to find the killer.

A college student must relive the day of her murder over and over again, in a loop that will end only when she discovers her killer's identity.

Storyline: A teenage girl, trying to enjoy her birthday, soon realizes that this is her final one. That is, if she can figure out who her killer is. She must relive that day, over and over again, dying in a different way each time. Can she solve her own murder?



Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, January 16, 2018 The movie begins with a nifty looping Universal logo that offers a cleverly enjoyable tonal hint for the movie to come, which is basically a Slasher movie version of Groundhog Day. Of course Director Christopher B. Landon's (Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) Happy Death Day lacks the comic genius, the touching emotional content, the burgeoning love story, the memorable moments, and the hilarious side characters that have made that Bill Murray film an indelible classic and its story, moments, and lines part of not only the language of cinema but everyday lexicon. But Happy Death Day is certainly a solid enough movie given the premise. It's an enjoyable time killer, fairly novel despite clashing together two disparate but very familiar motifs, but it does struggle to maintain momentum and avoid various pacing pitfalls and plot perils for the duration.

Tree (Jessica Rothe) is a typical college student, attractive and not without abundant opportunities to make a name for herself in the bedroom. She's sleeping with one of her professors, may have slept with a random boy, has been on a date with a third individual, and isn't above sleeping with other guys at a party. But her day, which just so happens to be her birthday, is about to get a lot more strange than waking up in a random dorm room. On the night of her big day, she's murdered, stabbed to death by an individual in a weird mask. She awakens the next morning in the same dorm room and, again that night, is killed by the same masked perpetrator. The cycle repeats, with the same set-up each and every morning. But as she comes to realize what is happening and becomes armed with foreknowledge and the memories of her repeat days, she takes the opportunity to track down her killer's identity and perhaps even right a few wrongs and find the best in herself and those who treat her well through her looping nightmarish ordeal.

Happy Death Day's opening moments serve as a set-up for the usual time loop movie barrage of memorable moments that will become familiar calling cards each and every time Tree loops back to the beginning of her birthday. Waking up in an unfamiliar dorm room, disgusted by an off-handed comment by said room's occupant's friend, approached by a global warming activist, witness to sprinklers soaking a couple on the lawn, hearing a car alarm blaring, and watching a gaggle of students singing the bottles of beer song all serve as rapid-fire calling cards that, yes, she's experiencing it all again. The film progresses through various clashing-genre tropes, having fun with both the opportunity to time loop on and around a college campus while also playing up the chance for the killer to cut down Tree in any number of ways. Fortunately she's not just stabbed to death every time. The film finds various opportunities for her demise to come in unexpected ways that all feel familiar but, with the movie's playful tone and wide-eyed embrace of genre cliché, most of it works even if the end result is usually always the same.

The premise allows the film to maneuver through any number of kill sequences with comic diversity but genre repetition. It works to a point, but the repetition does grow a little repetitive, with a predictable string of events that unfold as she grows from fear to frustration, from frustration to fun, from fun to finished with the idea of waking in the morning and dying at some point during her day. Tree does eventually take the opportunity to better herself and the small world around her, to find the best in herself and her situation as well as the people around her, though she's certainly not above ruining the days of a few other people along the way. But most of the movie is just noise. Characters are little more than story facilitators, individuals who play a necessary role in furthering Tree's understanding of what's happening or give her someone to take her frustrations out on as the need arises. The killer's identity doesn't come as a serious shock; the film misses an opportunity to make it someone more dramatically worthwhile and the reason more fluid and filling, but again the movie banks, and by-and-large thrives, on its genre hybrid approach that offers fans of one or the other, or both, a safe space little romp through a clever idea that's fairly, but not perfectly, executed.

Happy Death Day is as happy-go-lucky as a Slasher film can be. It doesn't take itself all that seriously, instead opting to have fun with the concept and enjoy the opportunity to settle into cliché with a wink and a nod. The picture boasts serviceable performances but becomes mired in the repetition; the last thirty minutes or so are a drag and the killer's identity and motivations aren't particularly memorable, but the overall experience is a net positive. Universal's Blu-ray features strong video, high-end audio, and a few extras. Recommended.

[CSW] -3.3- Fun film. Nice mix of horror and comedy (to be expected from a PG13 horror flick). There are some unexpected funny moments and scary moments, but it isn't really a horror flick. It is, however, a very entertaining popcorn flick with a twist at the end.
[V4.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box
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