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Go Shawty, it's yur birfday.
50 Cent's In Da Club was in this trailer, slowed down to comedic effect. Unfortunately they couldn't secure the rights for the movie and had to change her ringtone. How did they get it for the trailer? I have no idea. I had more fun with this Groundhog Day inspired slasher film than I expected to. With a charismatic lead performance from relative newcomer Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day manages to have fun in a tiredness of the classic repeating day troupe.
Tree is a sorority girl who manages to be a bitch to everyone. She is rude to a guy whose dorm room she wakes up in, the people she meets in the morning, her roommate and constantly ignores her father trying to call her on her birthday. Karma catches up to her when a masked figure stabs her to death. But wait, there's more!!!! Tree wakes up again, back in that dorm room. Things are eerily similar and she decides to take a different route from where she died last time. Yet that darn masked killer finds her and once again slices and dices. Rinse repeat. Now Tree must find out who her killer is and hopefully break this repeating cycle before the constant dying somehow ends up permanent.
Happy Death Day takes the slasher genre and mixes it with Groundhog Day. So it knows what it wants to be and it has fun with the subject matter. The director, Christopher B. Landon, has fun with the investigative aspects of Tree trying to solve her own murder. Eliminating suspects each time she dies. Plenty of room for comedy here and they make use of it. I would have appreciated a little bit more on the bloody side of things. This film is rated PG-13 and the lack of on screen gore really shows. Much like The Final Girls, Happy Death Day wants to pay homage to the 80's and 90's slasher genre, but feels crippled by the rating.
The identity of the killer was no surprise to me, films like this like to throw curveballs here and there and I found this one to be a little obvious. Story wise it made sense to me and worked well within the comedic aspects previously presented. Motifs are usually hit or miss, but here it could have been anything and it would work.
In most of these films it usually takes the lead character to change their personality from bad to good in order to break the loop. Tree takes this route too, but it mostly has to deal with finding and stopping her killer. Rothe makes the transition from bad to good believable and isn't afraid of making herself seem less desirable for a laugh. She is an attractive person and I feel like a lesser person who worries about their image wouldn't do the fart joke she does in the film, but here she is game and has fun with the material.
Happy Death Day surprised me with how much fun I had. It's nowhere near perfect and I could pinpoint a lot of problems, but the overall package is a neatly tied up one that I appreciated. The onscreen chemistry between Rothe and dorm boy Israel Broussard is believable and I wouldn't mind visiting these people again in a sequel. I feel like horror films as of late have been on an upward trend. I'm liking this.
Happy Death Day
(Christopher B. Landon)
(Christopher B. Landon)
Go Shawty, it's yur birfday.
50 Cent's In Da Club was in this trailer, slowed down to comedic effect. Unfortunately they couldn't secure the rights for the movie and had to change her ringtone. How did they get it for the trailer? I have no idea. I had more fun with this Groundhog Day inspired slasher film than I expected to. With a charismatic lead performance from relative newcomer Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day manages to have fun in a tiredness of the classic repeating day troupe.
Tree is a sorority girl who manages to be a bitch to everyone. She is rude to a guy whose dorm room she wakes up in, the people she meets in the morning, her roommate and constantly ignores her father trying to call her on her birthday. Karma catches up to her when a masked figure stabs her to death. But wait, there's more!!!! Tree wakes up again, back in that dorm room. Things are eerily similar and she decides to take a different route from where she died last time. Yet that darn masked killer finds her and once again slices and dices. Rinse repeat. Now Tree must find out who her killer is and hopefully break this repeating cycle before the constant dying somehow ends up permanent.
Happy Death Day takes the slasher genre and mixes it with Groundhog Day. So it knows what it wants to be and it has fun with the subject matter. The director, Christopher B. Landon, has fun with the investigative aspects of Tree trying to solve her own murder. Eliminating suspects each time she dies. Plenty of room for comedy here and they make use of it. I would have appreciated a little bit more on the bloody side of things. This film is rated PG-13 and the lack of on screen gore really shows. Much like The Final Girls, Happy Death Day wants to pay homage to the 80's and 90's slasher genre, but feels crippled by the rating.
The identity of the killer was no surprise to me, films like this like to throw curveballs here and there and I found this one to be a little obvious. Story wise it made sense to me and worked well within the comedic aspects previously presented. Motifs are usually hit or miss, but here it could have been anything and it would work.
In most of these films it usually takes the lead character to change their personality from bad to good in order to break the loop. Tree takes this route too, but it mostly has to deal with finding and stopping her killer. Rothe makes the transition from bad to good believable and isn't afraid of making herself seem less desirable for a laugh. She is an attractive person and I feel like a lesser person who worries about their image wouldn't do the fart joke she does in the film, but here she is game and has fun with the material.
Happy Death Day surprised me with how much fun I had. It's nowhere near perfect and I could pinpoint a lot of problems, but the overall package is a neatly tied up one that I appreciated. The onscreen chemistry between Rothe and dorm boy Israel Broussard is believable and I wouldn't mind visiting these people again in a sequel. I feel like horror films as of late have been on an upward trend. I'm liking this.