Review: Happy Death Day

Jessica Rothe is a generally unpleasant college student who wakes up in the dorm of a guy she doesn’t know after a night she doesn’t remember. It’s her birth day, but it’s also set to be her last day on Earth. Well, sort of. You see, by the end of the night Rothe meets a violent end…only to wake up the next morning…actually, she wakes up to the same morning. Over and over again. Unable to escape it, let alone unable to escape dying at the end of the night. Eventually she realises that the best course of action is to try and figure out who her masked killer is, and perhaps put a stop to this whole cyclical mess.

Horror movies weren’t exactly gory in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, so I don’t outright believe a horror film stands or fall on the basis of how much blood is in it. Hell, they don’t even need to be ‘scary’ to be ‘great’. However, if ever a film needed to be violent (or at least scary), it’s this tepid 2017 mixture of “April Fool’s Day”, “Heathers”, “Before I Fall”, and “Groundhog Day” from director Christopher Landon (“Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones”, “Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse”). Why? Because it sure as shit doesn’t have anything else going for it. The highlight? The Universal Pictures logo continually getting stuck, and that’s before the film even starts so it doesn’t really count.

Scripted by Scott Lobdell (apparently a comic book writer of some note), my main problem with the story isn’t that it rips off other films. No, the problem is that the story/plot isn’t remotely interesting the first time around, yet we’re forced to watch it play out over and over with only a few minor adjustments each time. Also, points off for having the lead character seemingly remember everything about the day/night except her own death. Yeah, that’s extremely convenient screenwriting. This isn’t scary, it isn’t funny, it isn’t original (“Before I Fall” took the same concept and adapted it to a fairly similar genre), it’s not expertly directed, and it isn’t interesting in the slightest. In fact, it’s probably worse than the entire slew of tepid, teen-marketed horror films that came out in the wake of “Scream”. Why in the hell was this made and released now?

One of the biggest problems for me is that Jessica Rothe’s protagonist is a giant beeyatch, a detestably snarky young woman we’re forced (not really) to spend 90 minutes with. If you’ve read enough of my reviews, especially horror films, you know I generally like to at least be able to relate to, if not like at least some of the main characters in a film. Well in this one it’s basically Rothe (playing it very broad) at the helm and she’s your typical snooty, snarky sorority chick. I’ve got no time for that. Sure, Bill Murray was a selfish, glib jerk throughout “Groundhog Day”, but he was also hilarious and that was “Groundhog Day”. That’s why I say the film needed to be violent (and apparently the original script was grislier, reworked by the director himself). In order for this to work with such an unlikeable lead, the audience needs to be able to enjoy seeing this jerk die over and over in horribly elaborate ways. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** Instead she apparently learns to be a better person. I say ‘apparently’ because she’s still the same snooty, snarky bitch by the end as far as I’m concerned. That’s why I disagree with test audiences on the original, bleaker ending. Look it up on IMDb, it sounds brilliant to me. ***** END SPOILER ***** But no, we don’t get gore here. As is, we’re given tepid, mostly bloodless violence that could see this thing play on any TV station without any cuts.

Another film you’ll be reminded of here is “Heathers”, in fact the film is much more black comedy than horror, except comedy (even black comedy) usually involves, y’know…laughs. “Heathers” was a one-off, I don’t know why filmmakers keep trying to recreate it, it never works out. Here instead of interesting characters played by Christian Slater and Winona Ryder, we get a bunch of samey sorority chicks and a couple of cardboard cut-out guys. No one stands out in cast or character, at least not in a positive way.

About the only nice thing I can say about the film is that the killer sports one of the more memorable horror movie masks I’ve seen. It’s the only thing I’ll remember about this lifeless, unfunny, scare-free waste of time. Unlikeable, uninteresting, unoriginal, unworthy of your time or money.

Rating: D+