HAPPY DEATH DAY (2017)

 

(Director/screenwriter: Christopher Landon. Screenwriter: Scott Lobdell.)

Review

Monday the 18^th. Tree Gelbhorn (Jessica Rothe), a hungover college student, wakes in another student’s dorm bed. How did she get here? Who is this seemingly nice guy (Carter Davis), whose bed she’s in? Did she sleep with him─they’re both clothed, and he’s rummaging around his room─and how fast can she get out of there?

A few minutes later, Tree walks through the daylit, busy campus, shaking off her alcohol-induced aches and pains, and gets on with her day. Later, that night, a silent, hoodie- and baby mask-wearing psycho stabs and kills her. Screen goes to black.

She wakes up in Carter’s bed again, beginning back-to-back re-loops of this day, with variable situations, all of them ending in her violent death. Can she figure out who’s trying to kill her and end this twenty-four-hour-replay nightmare before Baby Face ends her for good?

This PG-13-rated, hybrid horror comedy is a delight to watch. Light on gore (there’s a suggestive scene or two), it’s a fast-moving, funny and often suspenseful take on the serial killer genre, a butt-kick to its kill-by-numbers template. Scott Lobdell’s action-oriented screenplay is light on time-loop explanations, but to dwell on that is to nitpick (for this viewer, anyway), ignoring HAPPY’s other effective elements, including its solid mystery, organic humor and storytelling, and well-written lead characters.

Rothe is convincing as the flighty, resourceful, and defensive Tree.

Her fellow players are good as well. Standouts include: Ruby Modine (SATANIC PANIC, 2019) as Lori Spengler, Tree’s supportive and frustrated roommate; Rob Mello (FRIDAY THE 13th: VENGEANCE 2—BLOODLINES, 2021) as John Tombs, an escaped maniac who killed six women; and Rachel Matthews, whose bitchy, vacuous Danielle Bouseman─queen bee of Kappa house─infuses HAPPY with further levity.

Fans of 1980s teen comedies may delight in HAPPY’s homage to John Hughes’s 1984 film SIXTEEN CANDLES, which adds further heart and charm to this suspenseful, inventive, funny and good-for-a-PG-13 flick.