What do you get when you mash-up a slasher film, a mean girl as the main character, and a fantasy element a la 1993's "Groundhog Day?" You get "Happy Death Day." Quick aside... I know it sounds corny, but I have to admit that it's a clever word play movie title. Now, just from the trailer alone, you can already tell where the movie is going. Multiple death scenes. The mean and horrible girl learns a lesson about being a mean and horrible girl. The expected tropes involving our main character reliving the same day, over and over again. You basically should know what to expect when watching this movie.
As a legitimate slasher film, this is just serviceable. While there are a couple of acceptably constructed tense scenes that leads to a jump scare, the whole movie isn't exactly scary. Nor does it have a lot of jump scares in the first place. In fact, I rather liked the tameness of it all. Half of the scenes involving the attacker also contains humorous moments, which I appreciated. The whole mystery of who the attacker could be, is also a big chunk of the entertainment factor with this movie.
The mean girl of this story is Tree Gelbman; yes her name is actually "Tree," and as predictable as it instantly is, you can guess what her story arc is going to be in this movie. That part of the story is probably my least favorite aspect, because it's a plot trope that I'm frankly a little tired of already. Luckily and surprisingly, Tree is played by Jessica Rothe who does a terrific job in the role! She has to go through a lot of emotions here, but where I think she really shines is when she shows us a little bit of self-awareness to how crazy the premise of the movie is.
Now combine Jessica Rothe and the "Groundhog Day" idea, and we've got a winning formula for me here. The whole "repeat the same day over and over again" is a story premise that I'm a huge fan of. While it's been done many different times, and many different ways, I'll never get tired of it. So yes that in itself gives this movie an edge to gain my favor already. It's not as creative or as ambitious as other films who have also used this idea, but it gets the job done.
What kinda puts a damper on "Happy Death Day" for me is that, while I liked the premise and the lead actress, this film doesn't really offer anything truly substantial to make it really stand out among a huge crowd of similar movies. There are also moments of plot conveniences that took me out of the movie, which I wished wasn't the case. Overall, it's more or less just a diversion of a genre film that isn't as memorable as it should be.
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