Happy Birthdead

When I saw the trailer for this movie I admit I rolled my eyes and groaned that they were trotting out the circular time gimmick again. It was of course classic in Groundhog Day, but never seemed to click since then. I was dubious, but after seeing it with my own eyes, I can say I had a great time. I'm not sure if Blum House intended it to be funny, but it had a lot of humor in it, enough I would say to qualify it as a dark comedy. The cast was superb and while it didn't offer anything groundbreaking in terms of murders/deaths, I didn't mind because the story was so well connected and it really had me guessing right up until the end. Another litmus test for the quality of this movie is that the audience was rather quiet during the presentation. I've been to enough of these films to know that when you get a young audience seated in the dark and the film is a snooze, they'll start to talk and whisper and just annoy the Hell out of you. This movie managed to hold the attention of the entire audience and in this day and age I must say, that is an achievement in and of itself. I wasn't prepared to enjoy Happy Death Day as much as I did, but even I can admit when I was wrong. It worked from start to finish. I wasn't aware that Scott Lobdell wrote the script, but when I saw his name in the credits, I realized another reason I enjoyed it. I am familiar with his writing in the comic book industry and he is one of the more notable scribes. It's good to see the skills transfer.

I think people going to see this movie are expecting wayyyy to much from a slasher movie. I'm rating it based on what I expected, and I was certainly impressed. This movie wasn't trying to be anything more than another murder movie, but what made me want to see it was the idea of taking Groundhog Day (which it fully admitted to ripping the idea from) and turning it into a slasher film. I was actually surprised it held back on gore and blood. I was fully expecting it to be all the tropes of gross-out killings, but it was instead focused more on character development and the story. I admit the characters are a bit one-dimensional, but again, it's a slasher movie. It's trying to win any academy awards here. In many ways I think it's parodying those one-dimensional characters of college trope characters and the "last girl" in horror movies because it goes all-in on establishing the main characters as somebody you're meant to hate at first. The ending genuinely took me in a direction I didn't anticipate, and then it took me back to what I was expecting, but did it in a way that I felt fresh. All in all, I had fun watching this movie, which I think what this movie was meant to be: Fun.

Don't watch it if you are in for a gory slasher, but if you like a bit of suspense with (teenage) humor, you're in the right place. Watched this movie with a smile on my face, but I was still interested int he mysterious side of the movie.

I've been looking forward to this ever since I saw the teaser trailer, sadly it's taken me this long to get around to it.

So did it live up to expectations? Not entirely, but I walked away happy regardless.

For those unaware it's Groundhog Day (1993) with murder as we see a girl repeatedly being killed off only to start to day anew. Personally I loved this idea and was curious with where they were going to go with it.

The traditional slasher tropes are all present, some great dark humor is in the script and the cast are all on point. Notable especially is our leading lady Jessica Rothe who was excellent though I spent half the movie baffled by just how much she looks like Melissa Benoist.

I'm not sure the finale was up to the same quality as the rest of the film and that is perhaps why it's receiving a 7 not an 8. Something about it just felt inferior and saw the movie go out with a bit of a fizzle.

Regardless I can see why the film was so successful, congratulations to everyone involved because though I didn't find it as mind blowing as I'd hoped I can't deny that this is a very inventive fun little film.

The Good:

Jessica Rothe

Cast are all great

Fantastic concept

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Weak soundtrack for a movie of this ilk

Finale was underwhelming

Hearing the same dialogue repeatedly can get frustrating

Jessica Rothe shines through in this tongue in cheek horror. It's a film that doesn't take itself too seriously, the characters, means of death, and outlandish humour move it into the horror comedy genre.

I loved the reference to Groundhog Day at the end of the film, I would imagine there was some sort of in joke there, and of course any film that involves the loop storyline will have reference to the great Bill Murray film.

There were some great twists and turns, the best one coming at the end. This was very enjoyable. 7/10