In Theaters Now
Director: Christopher B. Landon
Starring: Jessica Routh, Israel Broussard
Sometimes you walk out of a film and say to yourself, “that was a bad movie.” This happened to me walking out of the theater after seeing Happy Death Day. HOWEVER, I was thoroughly entertained, as were most of the people in the theater.
The movie deals with a beautiful, young, college girl who wakes up on her birthday in a dorm (OMG, SO GROSS) and completes a walk of shame to her mansion turned apartment complex on sorority row. Soon you find out that she is genuinely an awful person. She gets stalked and killed by a person in a baby mask (a prop clearly selected before the plot was) and wakes up in the dorm again. This continues to happen, over and over again. It’s a slasher film with a Groundhog Day premise. I wonder if anybody has noticed that before…
There were parts of that movie that were so bad, so out of place, that I am convinced they were done on purpose. Gigantic plot holes that make no sense. The one that jumped out to me inside the theater (rarely happens with me) was that twice there were murders (justified ones) committed by our heroine and twice she was just chilin’ on sorority row a few hours later. I guess cops in this town are all “well, the bad guy dead, guess we ain’t got nothin’ to do now.”
The characters are even over the top. The “normal” guy is SO BORING. He has nothing to add to the story. The sorority is filled with people you hate. All the worst versions of college girls you could ever think of. There’s even a gay joke, that while not funny, fits in the rest of the movie because it’s so out of place.
The movie makes you laugh at parts that when repeated, aren’t funny at all.
“Lets make a list of everyone who knows it’s your birthday.”
“The whole university knows it’s my birthday.”
THE ENTIRE UNIVERSITY? Our female lead is the most famous Southern college student since Herschel Walker in 1980.
Aside from a few parts where they try to work in actual drama, all these things that seem out of place work. It’s an odd way to feel, I know. But every time I start to talk about how bad the movie is, I catch myself. They were trying to do something and that something was not take themselves too seriously. They succeed because they don’t.
Is it Watchlist-worthy? Sure. I wouldn’t rush to the box office to check it out. But it’s entertaining, and the few scary parts come across well. The film’s ending is way better than I thought it would be halfway through the flick. Check it out, it might surprise you.
