Happy Death Day 2U
Directed by: Christopher Landon
Written by: Christopher Landon
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, Suraj Sharma, Steve Zissis, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton, Rob Mello
Horror/Mystery/Thriller - 100 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 Feb 2019
Written by: Christopher Landon
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, Suraj Sharma, Steve Zissis, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton, Rob Mello
Horror/Mystery/Thriller - 100 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 Feb 2019
Happy Death Day premiered on Halloween weekend in 2017. Seems proper for a film where a baby mask wearing murderer repeatedly stabs the plucky female to death after stalking, chasing, and tormenting her. Happy Death Day 2U arrives on Valentine’s Day in what I assume is counter-programming to the romantic comedy crowd. Horror remains popular among the 18-34 demographic and releasing a slasher flick is apt to attract couples looking for a different kind of shiver on what many consider the most romantic of weekends. The fact that the sequel is less bloody and more comedic may either buoy the bottom line attracting folks who shy away from gore or may hinder its financial success because horror fans crave chest wounds and screams, not cheesy one-liners from their victims. Whether or not horror fans and their valentines show up is mostly up to advertising; what the audience will experience in the theater is a gelatinous mess – the cinematic equivalent of if a bag of those “Be Mine” candy hearts melted in the heat and formed a clumpy blob of goo.
Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) not only unmasked her killer at the end of the first film, she also struck back, realized the geeky guy helping her out was a real catch, and reversed her entire personality from selfish sorority sister to caring co-ed. Groundhog Day type stories where the hero experiences the same day over and over again have a funny way of always improving their attitudes and how they treat their fellow man. Happy Death Day 2U is more Back to the Future II with another helping of Groundhog Day. As in the first film, the characters themselves point this out – better to hear it from them before you snarkily tweet it out later. Tree’s life retreats into the spin cycle again, but this time in an alternate, parallel dimension. This horror film is about to douse unsuspecting thrill seekers will a Big Bang Theory episode all about the multiverse.
Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) not only unmasked her killer at the end of the first film, she also struck back, realized the geeky guy helping her out was a real catch, and reversed her entire personality from selfish sorority sister to caring co-ed. Groundhog Day type stories where the hero experiences the same day over and over again have a funny way of always improving their attitudes and how they treat their fellow man. Happy Death Day 2U is more Back to the Future II with another helping of Groundhog Day. As in the first film, the characters themselves point this out – better to hear it from them before you snarkily tweet it out later. Tree’s life retreats into the spin cycle again, but this time in an alternate, parallel dimension. This horror film is about to douse unsuspecting thrill seekers will a Big Bang Theory episode all about the multiverse.
There is a lot of Big Band Theory going on here. Tree is Penny. Penny fell in love with Leonard on the show and they generate laugh lines with how opposite they are. Tree fell in love Carter (Israel Broussard), the goofy guy who broke through Tree’s icy exterior to find the vulnerable girl tired of getting slaughtered at the end of every day. Carter’s roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu, Logan), invented some sort of ‘science machine’ he and his peculiarly genius undergrad friends call SISSY, which may or may not slow down time. Its electricity gobbling habits are the reason for the blackouts in the previous film and why Tree’s time loop kicked off. While trying to fix the loop for good, the ‘science machine’ explodes knocking Tree through dimensions into a similar, but different, Bayfield University – cuz quantum mechanics.
“You invented the time loop dummy” and “This sucks major balls in the history of ball suckery” are two of my favorite Tree outbursts at finding herself repeating the same day over again. Perhaps she’s talking about the movie. Writer/director Christopher Landon, at the risk of alienating his horror fan base, exchanges the repetitive murder scenes with suicides. Tree helps the SISSY scientist crew figure out the correct algorithm to send her home; it’s a whole montage. Only Tree retains any knowledge from the day before, so we watch her get math smart, fill whole whiteboards with equations, and look frustrated watching Carter, her boyfriend in her home dimension, make out with her frenemy, Danielle (Rachel Matthews), Carter’s girlfriend in this world. Gee whiz, what’s a girl to do?
Hold up, Tree’s mom is alive in this dimension – she has to stay here and enjoy that! But then she’ll never have Carter. “We all have to make hard choices” her mom says not realizing she is dead in another dimension and has no idea her daughter suffers from both time travel and boyfriend issues. There is also someone running around on the periphery of this world stabbing some folks to death, but that is sub-plot business. We’re here for the mom drama, not focusing on the recycled murder squad. Whether or not to dimension travel and figuring out where she is better off, at home or in wacky world, is the main crux.
The comedy that Landon wants the film to be comes off as farce. There is an angry college Dean-type character who is more cartoon as he rants and raves against the ‘science machine’ and creates slo-mo episodes of unplugging it. To distract him, Danielle masquerades as a blind, French exchange student in a scene you will only believe if you see it. It’s one of the most poorly written and sloppily executed pieces of cinema in years – an insult to true farce and slapstick. Throw in some more inexplicable jump scares of someone suddenly standing behind you, even though they never could have gotten there without making noise, and you’ll begin to understand this garbage. It makes as much sense as Penny talking the Big Bang crew through the ins and outs of the space-time continuum. No matter what dimension you are in, steer clear of this thing. “We fix it. That’s what scientists do,” proclaims one of the ‘science machine’ tinkerers – too bad they can’t fix the anomaly of Tree goes Back to the Future again / Murder She Wrote.
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