#66 - Happy Death Day (A Strange Halloween)

The worst of evils are as yet unseen
But they come to light on a strange Halloween

This thing made over $100m on a budget of kitty litter (around $5m, kitty litter by Hollywood standards you understand) for example

Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

We open with the Universal logo resetting twice because someone somewhere thought that was clever. I want to hurt that person.

We open in the city of College-town and to our lead waking up in some-one’s else’s dorm room with no idea how she’s there. Her name is Tree

And she’s in the dorm room of one Carter Davis, our love interest for the movie. Their awkwardness is interrupted by the most annoying sound in the world, Tree’s ringtone. OK, so we are (checks time-code) 1 minute and 49 seconds into the movie and I have a ton of questions about this f*cking ringtone.

Q1 – Can you actually set a phone to give you a special ringtone on your birthday?

Q2 – Why would you?

Q3 – Why would you choose the ringtone equivalent of needle-torture?
Q4 - Why does the song switch the pronoun type from first to second person in the second sentence?

This was very obviously supposed to be the 50-cent song from the trailers but their chicken-feed budget wouldn’t stretch to it. What they ended up with is… it’s horrible to listen to and I don’t understand why anyone in their right mind would willingly choose it as their ringtone. We’ll be hearing it a lot in this movie, so forgive me if this feels like a minor nit-pick.

It’s her father but she’s ignoring him for reasons to be explained later. Carter tries to be friendly but Tree ignores his friendliness and tells him not to say a word to anyone. As Tree leaves, ha, another boy stumbles into the room and sees her, she looks at him like you would gum on your shoe and then looks at Carter, shaking her head. Not sure what he did wrong but Carter calls him a dickhead, dickhead.

Tree exits the dorm room, with various hijinks going on around her. A hippie coming up to her with a survey, the sprinklers soaking a couple, a car alarm going off and one of the guys singing 99-bottles of beer falls over from exhaustion. She bumps into Tim, a guy who took her on a date to Subway. I honestly side with her on that although probably could’ve done without the penis joke.

She heads to the mansion she and her ‘friends’ are staying at. How can you afford this? She tries to sneak in but is caught in seconds and I feel the dialogue reaches Riverdale level for a moment. We meet Danielle, the perpetrator of said awful dialogue, she’s Tree’s 'sister'??? Tree enters her room and sees she’s running late for class, we’re introduced to her roommate Lori, who gives her a cake, she throws it away for having ‘too many carbs’

I get what this is doing, we’re not supposed to feel sorry for when she inevitably dies in this movie, so they’re making her quite unlikeable and making her become a better person as the story progresses. That’s fine but this is an arc that’s been done time and time again and there’s little when it comes to variation.

Of course, we can’t stop at her being oblivious, she has to be having an affair with her teacher too, but we’ll get to that. There’s a house-meeting and one of girls is shamed by the others, including Tree for daring to bring, *gasp* food. It’s also interesting how she’s the only woman of colour in the group, not sure if that was intentional or… Anyway, she gets up and bumps into Carter and Tree ends up with chocolate milk down her back.

Carter tries to apologise and hands her back some jewellery she’d ‘left behind’ earlier. The girls think he’s a douchebag and whilst they’re not entirely wrong, it’s the pot calling the kettle black. After another rendition of the annoying song, we see Tree brush off Lori again, we see one of the hospital rooms has a security guard. She enters the office of one of her teachers, Doctor Butler, for him to come in and they begin kissing before, oh f*ck me, his wife comes in.

I can’t even… TREE AND DOCTOR BUTLER ARE COMPLETE IRREDEEMABLE SCUMBAGS! Tree paints her nails and watches Teen Mom when Danielle comes in, tells her about, oh you are kidding me, another PARTY?! Tree listens to an angry message from her father as she passes a group of people in sports gear, one of them, wearing a black hoodie and one of the creepy masks turns around.

She enters a subway and finds a toy conspicuously placed in the middle of it. Erm… glad no-one else used the tunnel. Anyway, the creep in the Black Hoodie confronts her, somehow gets to the other side of the tunnel ahead of Tree, chases her down until she trips and stabs her. She wakes up back in Carter’s room.

She begins to get so déjà vu and is honestly a little bit kinder this time around. OK, so, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. No explanation is given for why this happened to Tree. That is unacceptable from a professionally written product, this is the core concept of the movie and there’s no world-building around it. The other problem is this concept immediately nullifies any tension in the movie, Tree can die as many times as the movie wants and the plot will continue. For this to work I have to be invested in her character but nope, not really.

Tree sees the inspirational message ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life’ gee, I wonder what the movie’s message is? So before having taken the headache pills this time, Tree exits the dorm and heads to her mansion. As she does so, all the hijinks ensue once again. I’m not gonna repeat all the hijinks and bad dialogue that follows. Tree is more bemused by it all this time, she leaves, this time not even blowing out the candle and seems entranced by everything that happens. She pays special attention to the sports mask similar to the one her killer wore. Who supports any sport wearing a mask that creepy?

She heads Doctor Butler’s office and this time says she isn’t in love with him? What? Then what was this whole subplot? Anyway, when she says that, he goes in to kiss her. EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE IS A SCUMBAG! She watches a video of one of her previous birthdays, when she gets her face pushed into the cake by her now deceased mother. Wow, even the dead are dickheads

This time she spots the masked hooded man, but he joins the sports crowd again. She heads to the subway but open seeing the trap she finds another way to the party. She finds the door locked, the door opens and she sees a man similar to the one who killed her, she punches him in the face, before finding out it’s a surprise party. Lori isn’t there for some reason, *ahm*. She heads upstairs to have sex with the man she punched earlier and you can guess where this is going. Damn jumpscares!

The guy’s room is tripped out with the kind of sh*t you wouldn’t normally see in a share house, convenient how it makes so much noise Tree can’t hear when the guy is killed by the killer. Tree tries to defend herself but gets glass to the throat and finds herself back in Carter’s room. Panicked, she rushes out and her déjà vu commences once again. This time she brushes off everything in her panicked state.

She tries to confide in Lori but to everyone else she isn’t making a lot of sense. Lori calms her down, but she begins barricading herself in her room, before looking at a photo of her mother. She sits in bed, wanting to watch the TV but can’t find the remote, she finds a birthday card that for some reason has a creepy spinning face in it, the TV turns off, the wardrobe is open, she finds nothing, she heads to the ensuite, almost pulls back the curtain, the TV turns on and she heads to that, so the killer can strike.

It’s interesting that every time she wakes up, her scream is louder, this time Carter hits his head on the desk. Tree is even more freaked out and credit to him, Carter catches up with her, she forgot all her stuff this time, she breaks down and finally asks for help. Carter’s stopped calling his friend a dickhead so he might actually be the first character I like in this timeline.

Right, now he asks why this day is special, why of all days she’s reliving this one. It’s her birthday is his answer and I come back to my rant. Having half-hearted conversations like this about why something’s happening but never providing a definitive answer is lazy. I add to this that leaving some questions about motivation can add to the horror factor, but this isn’t about the horror, it’s about explaining why this entire movie is functioning!

And they quickly address the elephant in the room, no he didn’t have sex with her last night, he slept on another bed. He took her to his place, not knowing where she lived because she was so drunk and has bad friends. The two theorise that she can eliminate suspects by dying over and over again. And she starts with Tim, who he finds out is watching gay porn? Totally needed to know that. Anyway, she’s wrong and dies. Next time round, she dies her hair for some reason.

Stephanie is her next target but that doesn’t go well. She gets into a fight with Danielle and gets hit by a bus but also crosses her off the suspect list. Her next few tries, she seems to be more self-confident, walking about completely naked. She waits for her killer with a bat, but hits the wrong person and ends up hit. At this point Tree decides to stop with this plan.

Although she doesn’t have much of a choice as she passes out soon after waking up. She sees the killer approaching her in the hospital but it’s really just Carter. Dr Butler sees her test results, which show major traumas that should’ve killed her. This is their half-hearted attempt to replace the tension. The problem is they can’t apply it consistently otherwise she’ll be bed-ridden for the rest of the movie.

She asks him to get her a drink but of course it’s a distraction so she can leave the room undetected. She heads to his office and begins searching for the car keys, but finds a compartment underneath with the mask, this wouldn’t be bad detective work if she wasn’t completely wrong. Dr Butler catches up with her but the killer kills him, Tree runs, having found the car keys and heads into the car park, barely avoiding him.

She gets in just in time and drives off. She drives away fast, and seems happy to have gotten away but is soon stopped by the police. Realising that police custody is a good place to stay safe, she admits she stole the car, and gets herself arrested. Unfortunately the killer catches up, killing the cop and now Tree is locked in the cop car and handcuffed. The killer walks away, noticing the leaking fuel tank and drops a candle into it, blowing up the car

She awakens and you remember what I said about the logic being inconsistent. She’s awake, not feeling any of those injuries and not even feeling the consequences of being in an explosion. You’d think she might be a bit burnt. Anyway, she once again convinces Carter of her problem and the two go to a diner/coffee shop to discuss. And we’re far enough into the movie for an obligatory fart joke.

This is a slasher/mystery/teen drama aimed with a 15 rating, why are there fart jokes? She continues ignoring phone calls from her dad. And it about time we found out why. Turns out she shared the same birthday with her mother, who died 3 years ago. So her birthday has become a painful reminder of her, even more so if ‘3 years’ was exact. So also remarks that she’s seen who she is, and doesn’t think her mother would be proud.

She remarks that she’s getting weaker every time she’s revived. Last time you were so weak you collapsed and ended up in hospital, calling bullsh*t. They see on the news a serial killer named John Tombs (apt name) in the hospital, one responsible for 6 murders, Tree believes it’s him, despite all the clues from the previous days she remembers not counting for him. She heads to the hospital, telling the receptionist to call the police as he’s going to escape.

She breaks out the emergency axe and sees a blood laden window, she enters and finds the guard dead, she runs to the elevator but Tombs catches up with her. Stupid b*tch never thought to use the stairs. Tombs is about to make his move but Carter I guess teleports in and tackles him, disarming him. She tries to shoot using Tombs’ gun but it’s out of ammo and Carter is killed.

She runs, getting the drop on Tombs but soon realises if she doesn’t reset the day, Carter may be gone for good. She drops her weapon and runs, allowing Tombs to recover and pursue her anew. Also, they’re in a clock tower, somehow. She hangs herself (seriously) and resets the day, grateful to Carter for having tried to save her life. Unsurprising she isn't even feeling rope burn on the neck when she wakes up

She takes a pillow from Carter, using it to save the guy passing out from bottles of beer on the wall. She finds Tim and convinces him to embrace the gay. She spills all to Danielle than apologises to Lori for being a bad roommate. She decides to interrupt Dr Butler’s lecture, because her bitch phase isn’t entirely over. She ends things, finally, with Dr Butler. Then she joins in having calories at the house meeting, pouring chocolate milk over Danielle’s head, like I said, her b*tch phase isn’t entirely over.

Carter shows up and he and Tree kiss, and she asks him out, to which he agrees. Bear in mind he’s known her for bout 5 minutes from his perspective. She makes it to meet her father, still nearly an hour late but what can you do? She confesses her feelings to her father and apologises, largely for things, that in his eyes, never actually happened.

So with that part of her day done, time to confront the serial killer in her life. She does this by threatening the security guard with a knife, then his own gun. I don’t think she’s as mentally sound as she thinks she is. She bursts into the guy’s room, where’s he’s strapped down and feigning unconsciousness. She tries to shoot him, but the safety’s on and he manages to escape. He has her down but she times it with the blackout that’s happening and gets the drop on him, turning off the safety and shooting him.

She and Carter celebrate with the cupcake and the next morning, she wakes up in Carter’s bed again. She rushes back home, trying to run away, but then Lori presents her with the cupcake and Tree begins to realise something, the cupcake was poisoned. Lori had access to Tombs, drugged him and let him loose but was the one doing the killing almost every other time. Apparently, this was because of Dr Butler… are you f*cking kidding me. They scrap and Tree stuffs the cake in her face before kicking her out the window, killing her.

Now, to everyone else, this would look like Tree has gone nuts and killed her, but apparently the news managed to find out, I’m not even sure how. Carter and Tree hook up… in this timeline he’s known her all of 2 seconds, and last time he saw her she freaked out and ran home, barely saying a word, and none that made sense. Anyway, he invites her to stay at his place since her room’s a crime scene and all, and she agrees. Her dad calls and she assures him she’s alright and will see him soon.

Carter makes a comment about how her scenario is like Groundhog Day. Because it is exactly like Groundhog Day, down to not explaining the premise, the only real difference is the murder mystery sharing the core with the character arc. Turns out she knows less about movies than I do, that’s saying something. They make out some more the next morning and we see the cat poster again, the end.

But we’re not done yet, there was an alternate ending to this one. In this version, Tree wakes up in hospital the next day with her father and Carter at her bedside. A Doctor calls them out, as Tree asks Carter out. The Doctor tells her no pain medication and leaves as another Doctor enters. Turns out it’s Dr Butler’s wife, who then injects her with a poison that kills her.

So that was Happy Death Day.

Is it the worst thing I’ve ever watched? No, but the looming shadow of some of its major problems spoil the movie for me. Beyond that, the slasher horror is the bit I find the least interesting and the part that gets the most attention. Which is a pity because there is an intriguing mystery here, even if the answers aren't entirely satisfying.

In my opinion each death should've given her another piece of the puzzle, the montage where she was eliminating suspects is where I thought that was happening the best, but soon after she begins ignoring facts established earlier in the film to fit her new narrative, not saying it was out of character but it did halt plot progression significantly, the serial killer was a decent red herring but had little character beyond being a psychopath.

As for the alternative ending, I don’t see why Dr Butler's wife and Lori would work together, given that Lori too wanted to screw Dr Butler. There’s also nothing in the movie I remember that says the repeating day thing has to stop the next day (just hints that Birthday is the movie's equivalent to Groundhog day, which isn't enough in my opinion) so she might just restart the loop.

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES

Failing to explain why its concept is happening is a fundamental flaw in the structure of this movie, and without it everything falls apart, especially since the mystery is 3^rd after a generic slasher and a generic teen girl arc.

Rating 20%

A mystery set but a meaning forgot
A subtle movie this one is not
An arc to achieve
Many deceived
This one did not hit the spot

We continue our journey into darkness, unseen
No matter the cost on a strange Halloween