James Reviews: 'Happy Death Day 2U'

Slasher flicks seem to have died off in recent years. Sure, Scream may have found a home as TV series but it's been a while since we've gotten a Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yesteryear, the amount of movies in the genre that were coming out made it seem that they were going out of fashion, and well, they sorta did. They're still with us and continue to be a popular topic, but there's something uniquely different about them. Characters are no longer cutouts for a cast of stereotypes; they're now deeply complex people with goals and ambitions. Gone are the cheesy plot lines and exaggerated kills. Now, the focus is to provide a captivating plot with realistic deaths. In a sense, the killers have now become characters on their own, and the genre is no more than whodunit flicks with blood. Each entry now feels like its own ambitious vision, and Happy Death Day 2U is no exception, even if it gets too sidetracked for its own good.

Let's take a look at how the film sets the scene. We learn that Ryan, one of Theresa "Tree" Gelbmans's friends, is stuck living the same day over and over after being killed by the Babyface Killer. Tree helps him catch and subdue his pursuer, but when the mask is pulled, it's revealed to be another Ryan, who claims the original Ryan must die to close the loop. Through a moment of panic, the original Ryan activates the quantum reactor that he and his lab partners have been working on. Everybody in the room gets knocked out, and Tree wakes up on Monday the 18th, back in the loop, except this time, (spoilers for the first film) her roommate isn't the killer, her boyfriend Carter is dating a nicer version of her sorority sister Danielle, and her mother is still alive. It's here that the movie offers possibility for fun, alternate-dimension shenanigans, and a new mystery to solve, but both are quickly abandoned for some repetitive plot structure. They revolve around three key things: Tree needs to figure out how to get home, she resets the day by killing herself, and she spends time with her mom who is deceased in her original reality.

Now those are some important aspects, but the movie already set itself up with the Babyface version of Ryan; why is he here? When Tree came over to the new dimension, she replaced the version of her that exists in that reality, so how did Ryan 2 cross over without replacing Ryan 1? Who is the real Ryan? There was a golden opportunity here for a sci-fi mystery, but it's so unbalanced in tone that it shifts from horror to comedy back to horror, without any clear vision in mind. Half the time you end up forgetting that it's a slasher film, and you're only reminded when Babyface jumps out of the shadows.

There are some bright spots here and there. Jessica Rothe remains a charming and likable lead, delivering some genuinely heartfelt moments, and having a knack for comedic timing. Much like the first film, she does most of the heavy lifting, and it's more than enough to hold your attention and root for her to win. On top of that, when the movie does decide to be a horror flick, it can have some terrifying moments and they rarely resort to jump scares. Perhaps the best example is when Tree and Lori are making their way through a floor of the hospital that is going through renovations; the music is low-note and the cinematography adds to the tension that the killer could strike at any moment. The camera cuts to a breeze among the dust barrier, then it cuts to Lori standing perfectly still. She turns around and it pans down, and the violins let out a slow eerie note as it reveals that she's been stabbed. Only when she collapses does Babyface appear, no loud booming effect in tow. It's a well-executed sequence, and they're sadly few and far between.

Although the film made far less money than the original, it's still a massive success when you factor in the $9 million budget, so there's no doubt that a third Happy Death Day will soon be on the horizon. When it does eventually come, the question will be whether it continues on the path of science fiction and comedy, or if it will find a way to get more horror back into the series. Worst case scenario, it will resort to the rules Randy Meeks laid out in Scream 3.

Rating: 6/10—Solid