*Originally written October 26th, 2017*
"Live. Die. Repeat"
Not a lot to say about Happy Death Day a mostly serviceable and entertaining spin on the Groundhog Day formula, but with a horror/slasher twist.
It's all just fairly watchable, yet highly forgettable. It made for breezy watching, mostly thanks to its 90 minute run time, but it just feels lacking in many areas.
All the characters are pretty horrible. Jessica Rothe (Blake Lively's long lost twin sister) does a fine job as the lead, a college student forced to relive the day she's murdered again and again until she survives it. There was no problem with her performance, she shines at times and is genuinely funny and charming, but the character is such a bitch at the beginning, it was hard to root for her. Luckily she gets easier to root for as she starts to see her wrongs as the film goes on.
I liked the fact they never explain why the 'Groundhog Day' effect happens, she just wakes up with the ability. No nonsensical fantasy element, it just happens. I appreciate that, rather than most films way of over explaining things.
The mystery of why the girl is killed is pretty weak, resolved in a pretty laughable and insane twist. I'd argue most of the film is very stupid, but that's the point. There's a crazy amount of times the lead could have figured out who was trying to kill her, but decides to give it a different try. They don't take the Edge of Tomorrow approach of the lead trying the same tactic until it worked. It was just kind of infuriating to see the lead knock down the killer and run off, when she had the perfect opportunity to mash his brains in while he was down.
For a 15 rated (In the UK) film, I was surprised at how tame this was. There was potential for a variety of gruesome kills, but instead the camera tended to cut away before any of the gore could be seen, I assume this was to secure a lower age rating in other countries, but in the UK, it just seems another addition to the 15 rating the BBFC shove on tame films purely for being "Horror".
I sound quite negative, but I did have a lot of fun with Happy Death Day. I didn't expect this to be as funny as it was, but it worked more as a comedy than it did a horror. There's a few lame jump-scares, but it never takes itself seriously. The highlight was easily a montage of the lead continually dying in order to cross of the list of suspects it might be.
Happy Death Day is far from one of the best horror films of the year, but as a passable slasher film with the Groundhog Day gimmick, it did its job and is obviously appealing to the teen crowd. What I'm trying to say is, it was better than I was expecting. Hey ho.
6/10 Dans
Happy Death Day is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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