It's Monday the 18th... again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
2017's Happy Death Day was a winner - namely of the Filmic Forays Low-Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I Expected (quite the honour, let me tell you). Expecting the kind of C-grade teen horror movie you laugh at, I was delighted instead to find myself laughing with that strangely sweet-natured horror-comedy. A Groundhog Day/Mean Girls/Scream triple-fusion, it took sorority piece-of-work Tree Gelbman, put her through a nasty-stabby time-loop wringer and turned her into a proactive heroine for whom the audience was rooting all the way. Of course such enthusiasm meant I approached Happy Death Day 2 U as a wary fan - nervous of what a sequel might do to the first film's crowd-pleasing legacy...
Aaaaaand relax. It's good. Not without its flaws, but - definitely good.
It's also a huge surprise in its own right, in that it take the genre conventions established in the first film and smashes a whole new genre into them with the force of a particle accelerator. Within the first ten minutes most of what you might have been expecting is blown to smithereens, before being reassembled into something that is definitely familiar, but - different. Okay I'm tiptoeing around plot points here, as HDD2U is best experienced by fans with its WTF-factor intact. What I can say is this... Tree is happy with new boyfriend Carter, the time-loop is broken and her life is back on track. But the cause of said time-loop, which has an unexpected connection to Carter's oafish roommate Ryan, is still in play and soon she finds herself trapped back in Monday 18th - the same as before, only not. The stakes this time around are very different.
There's a degree of sadness (expressed by Tree herself in the movie) that whatever mystical explanation audiences had for the heroine's Groundhog experience has been totally undermined by the sequel's radical twist. In addition the new plot elements require some wild leaps in logic that we're left to bridge for ourselves, as the story is far too busy moving forward to sort them out for us. However the new tack does usher in a multiverse of possibilities that serve to keep the central premise fresh. There's a ticking clock aspect, a clutch of new/developed/altered characters and a heartbreaking central dilemma for the Deathday Girl.
Speaking of Jessica Rothe, she is -
once again - the chief reason for this film's success. In the first she
made a sarcastic 'beatch' likeable and that character's repeated slaughter
palatable through bolshy energy and a nice line in gallows
humour. Now she reenters the loop as a raging blonde torrent - fierce
and hilarious, attacking the material with the panache of a star rather
than a standard B-movie scream-queen. Despite an enjoyable group dynamic
this is her show and she excels - both in the helter-skelter craziness
of the plot and in the genuinely affecting character moments. Seriously, give the
girl more work. She's good!
The
unleashing of this comedic whirlwind is indicative of the film's
intentions as a whole. While some horror elements remain - a bit of
stalk-and-slash down campus/hospital corridors - this is much more a
comedy, a character drama and a romance, plus that other thing
I've not explicitly stated. It succeeds totally at the first three and
has a good stab at the third, the musical score and an early film
reference cheekily underscoring the daring new direction. Do all the
elements hold together? Just, and only if you fill in various
plot-blanks and tie up on or two plot threads yourself. However
the whole enterprise is so good-natured and gleefully played that you'll
likely be happy to do that. And there may very well be a HDD3 - so that
Tree Gelbman and friends can all die another day.
Gut Reaction: Some fairly major head-spinning at the genre-hop and a bit of grasping for sense. But mostly laughter and delight at seeing Tree in action again.
Memorable Moment: Montage of the macabre.
Ed's Verdict: 7/10. If you can get your head around the new concept and roll with the madness, you'll find this a worthily fun follow-up. What's Happy Death Day for, if not to screw with your expectations?
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