Happy Death Day (2017) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 26

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Live. Die. Repeat.

Happy Death Day might sound a little bit like Happy Birthday to Me, and there is a small amount of similarity between the protagonists. But what audiences get is a fun thrill ride through horror tropes and time loops, as they witness the unexpected growth of the main character.

Before Viewing

Borrowing a page from Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day looks to be about a young co-ed who awakens in a dorm room, having to do a walk of shame across the quad before being murdered later that day. She then repeats this cycle over and over again as she tries to discover who is trying to kill her (and why)! Originally released on Friday the 13th, this film looks like a lot of fun.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

At Bayfield University in Louisiana, Theresa “Tree” Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) awakens, to her dismay, in Carter Davis’ (Israel Broussard) dorm room after a hard night out drinking. The sorority girl is rude, asks for some Tylenol, and then leaves, reminding Carter that none of this ever happened. She performs the walk of shame across the quad ignoring a girl collecting signatures about global warming, seeing a couple sprayed by sprinklers on the lawn, hearing a car alarm go off, and seeing an exhausted Frat pledge faint. She is met at her sorority by queen B, Danielle (Rachel Matthews), and her roommate Lori (Ruby Modine), who has found out it’s Tree’s birthday and made her a cupcake with a candle in it.

She meets up with one of her professors, Dr. Gregory Butler (Charles Aitken), with whom she’s having an affair, and just misses getting caught by his wife, Stephanie (Laura Clifton). She ignores calls and texts from her father (Jason Bayle) who is meeting her for a birthday lunch. That evening she is on her way to a party when she is attacked by someone in sweats and a Bayfield Baby mascot mask. She talks tough thinking it’s a prank, but the person follows her stabbing her, and she dies…only to awaken, again, the same morning in Carter’s dorm room. She plays through the same events again, with an odd sense of deja vu, except remembering the attack, she avoids the killer, makes it to the party (a surprise party for her birthday) and ends up being killed in Frat Boy Nick’s (Blaine Kern III) bedroom.

On Day Three of the Loop, Tree confides in Lori about the repeating days and barricades herself in her room. She is attacked by the baby-masked killer later that evening. On Day Four, she tells Carter about the time loop who thinks it’s pretty cool that she basically has unlimited chances to solve her own murder. She makes a list of  possible suspects as a montage shows her investigating frat-boy Tim (Caleb Spillyards), Stephanie, and Gregory’s school office. But she is again murdered by none of these people. The next day she passes out shortly after awakening and is admitted to the hospital. Gregory examines her and says it appears she has some trauma indicating she should be dead. The cumulative trauma from the various killings carries over to the various loops.

Having an idea, she leaves the hospital room and searches Gregory’s office at the hospital and finds a baby mask hidden in a drawer. This is a fake-out as Gregory is killed moments later by the real killer in the hallway. She manages to get to the parking garage, find Gregory’s car, and drive away from the killer. Ecstatic, she races down the highway amazed she has escaped, but is soon shocked to see police lights in her rear view mirror. The officer asks if she’s been drinking which she admits too, if it means he will take her to put her in jail for the night. As he places her in the patrol car, another vehicle hits him, sideswiping the police car and causing it to leak gasoline. The baby-faced killer lights a birthday candle, drops it into the leaking fuel and Tree explodes, waking up again in the dorm room.

Talking with Carter the next day, Tree admits that her birthday is difficult since it was the same birthday as her mother, who died three years ago. They see a news report about serial killer John Tombs being admitted to the University Hospital and believe that this is the missing clue and that he is the killer. Tree and Carter go to the hospital but Carter gets stabbed by the baby-faced killer, who removes the mask revealing–Tombs. She feels vindicated and is about to kill the serial killer to end the loop  when she realizes if she does, Carter will stay dead forever. She heads to the bell tower and hangs herself, awakening–you guessed it, in the dorm room. The next day is her perfect day. She is the better person Carter had mentioned. She kisses Carter, disses Danielle and reconciles with her father, plus helps almost every person she sees failing in her loops.

At the hospital she comes for Tombs, though he gets the upper hand. That is, until the lights go out as they do every time during this day. Tree gets his gun and shoots him dead. She and Carter celebrate with her cupcake from Lori. Soon, she awakens again in the dorm room. Tree realizes that cupcake must have been poisoned, as this was the only time she ever ate it, which means Lori is the killer. She confronts her roommate who admits to being upset that Gregory preferred Tree to her. Tree shoves the cupcake into Lori’s mouth, they fight, and then Tree kicks the would-be killer out the second floor window. She and Carter celebrate and the next morning she awakens in the dorm room, but it’s finally the next day.

“Look, I don’t know you all that well, but it’s never too late to change. I mean, especially if what you’re saying is true. Each new day is, it’s a chance to be somebody better.” – Carter Davis

Happy Death Day is a unique type of horror film, infusing the science-fiction related time loop into the tropes of a slasher film. Audiences may even point out the similarities between it and Groundhog Day (or even Edge of Tomorrow), which makes it funnier that the film ends with a reference to that 1993 Bill Murray comedy. The time loop serves as a great hook to tell a film about a killer murdering the same person in various ways. It allows Tree to be all the victims from a normal slasher film rolled into one. She’s the mean girl, and the final girl, plus every victim in between. In fact, with the exception of a few other characters deaths on-screen (Gregory, Carter, the police officer and John Tombs) which are reset with each iteration, she’s the only character that dies in the film.

The premise of most time loop films (Time Freak, Palm Springs) is to have the main character, or characters, experience personal growth by reliving the same moments over and over again, learning something new each time. And their way out is usually attaining that enlightenment that they lacked at the beginning of the story. Happy Death Day presents Tree as a self-absorbed, party girl who doesn’t have time for others. The first iteration depicts the train wreck of her life, from waking up in a strange place after drinking so much she has no memory of the night before, to pouncing on a married man moments before his wife shows up. The time loop is a gift to her, allowing her to experience immediate self-growth. At least, in terms of the passage of actual time. What a great way to gain insight and self-knowledge, than reliving the same day over again, and coming out a better person on the other side. Except for the getting murdered part, that is.

The horror film aspect of Happy Death Day explores the tropes of many slasher films in which characters are killed off by a large list of suspects and the lead protagonist must whittle down that list to actual killers before being killed themselves. Though in this film, Tree is all of those characters, even allowing herself to be the killer in one loop, as she hangs herself in order to save Carter from “staying dead.” The film borrows from many other movies, most notably Scream with the masked killer adopting the look of the school mascot (a baby) instead of a popular halloween costume (ghost face), but also with the serial killer (Tombs) being thought to be the film’s killer, as was the case with Cotton Weary in that film. The deaths also escalate in complexity and zaniness as many slasher franchise films do. The first time Tree dies, it is a simple stabbing. But eventually, she ends up locked in a police car with a puddle of gasoline, to which the killer tosses a lit birthday candle causing the whole thing to explode.

As the film continues, Tree learns compassion, and self-acceptance for her mistakes. It shows in the little ways, which are depicted in the repetitive quad scene where the girl asks for her signature on a global warming petition and the couple is sprayed by the sprinklers. Her “perfect day” includes righting all the wrongs she created on her first iteration, by even helping the frat boy by putting a pillow down so his head doesn’t hit the ground. She matures like an actual tree, growing little by little, even as she gets pruned back. The use of humor in the film, as in Groundhog Day, keeps the film from getting too dark with the same person getting killed over and over again.

With any film where the same events play out from multiple perspectives or over multiple iterations, there will be some gaps in logic and continuity. But Happy Death Day keeps an upbeat sense of fun around it, having the burgeoning romance between the bratty sorority girl and the nerdy guy to provide stability as Tree figures out who killed her. The actors all do a great job of playing the same lines in various ways throughout the repetitions that also make it fun, and funny, to watch multiple times. In the end, who the killer is and why they did it becomes less important than the growth achieved by Tree as she becomes a better and well-rounded individual. Even if she has never seen Groundhog Day.

Assorted Musings

• A poster on Carter’s dorm wall for They Live could be a subtle nod to the repetitive nature of Tree’s story; reliving the same day after being murdered.
• A sequel called Happy Death Day 2U picks up after the events of this film, and features many of the same cast members.
• The film was written by Scott Lobdell, famous for being a comic book writer (X-Men, Red Hood and the Outlaws) as well as penning the Critters television movie Critters Attack!