Happy Death Day 2U (2019) Review!!!

Synopsis – Tree Gelbman discovers that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead.

My Take – Released back in 2017, Happy Death Day, this Blumhouse production released without much fanfare, and went on to become one of the biggest surprise successes of the year. What made this scrappy, low-budget thriller a major triumph ($125.5 million on its $4.8 million budget) was how it used the concept of the 1993 comedy ‘Groundhog Day’ and turned it into a clever and unique horror film that delivered some really fun surprises.

Hence it wasn’t surprising when a sequel was quickly announced, even though it was a little concerning considering about how many times could you fuse the same-day-over-and-over story-line with the senseless-deaths-over-and-over bloodletting of a slasher flick without looking vague.

Thankfully the sequel takes a route less traveled for film sequels by twisting the narrative, including the genre, into something completely different. It is rare for sequels to be as good as the original because filmmakers are inclined to replicate the success of the original formula and it is even rarer for filmmakers to think outside the box when approaching a sequel.

In the case of this sequel, one must credit writer and director Christopher Landon for stepping up boldly, as this time around this isn’t just a straight up slasher, but instead a science fiction/comedy mash up with horror and romance elements thrown in. The result not only works well but also rivals the first one in execution. With a cast that’s as game as Landon‘s script and direction, here everyone involved have not only stepped up, but have also set a pretty high bar to clear for any potential follow-ups.

Set right after the events of the first film, the story follows Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), who has finally freed herself from a loop where she lived her birthday over and over, and died at the hands of a baby masked killer every time, that is until she was able to solve her own murder. While she is happy that life has gone back to its normal idyllic pace with her new boyfriend, Carter (Israel Broussard), his roommate Ryan (Phi Vu) comes with a news that he is stuck in a time loop and is being hunted by someone in a baby mask.

Turns out it was Ryan and his fellow lab mates, Samar (Suraj Sharma) and Dre (Sarah Yarkin), who created a device that caused Tree to go through the loops, and with recent experience in hands she decides to help them close the loops once and for all. However an unexpected setback caused from the science experiment, sends Tree waking up in parallel dimension, once again on her birthday.

Here, she finds her friends and fellow students as completely different versions of themselves like Carter is dating Danielle (Rachel Matthews), her obnoxious house sister who is supposedly her best friend now, and her former best friend, Lori (Ruby Modine) and her mother (Missy Yager) are also alive and well. But when she finds herself and her inner circle as the target of the baby masked killer again, she must choose between remaining in an unfamiliar world with her mother, nodding along to stories she doesn’t remember, or returning to her real life. That’s on top of figuring out who keeps killing her and sending down the loop, since it could be anybody in this new dimension.

Now that we as the audience know the rules and the setup to such a premise, director Landon has more fun with Tree and her misadventures in temporal recurrence. On its own terms, the film is wildly entertaining. While it still struggles with some shoddy dialog and unusual side character performances, like a wacky college professor who bumbles into the excitement at the worst time, the film still merges its quality elements in a very enjoyable way. It takes interesting genre detours and maximizes its premise.

While most horror sequels focus on replicating the thrills and scares that worked before while throwing things like character development to the side, here director Landon seems intent on being the antithesis of this notion. It also benefits from spirited performances, an infectiously fun tone, and a determined approach to breaking outside the norm of mainstream sequels. Knowing that the sequel will never replicate the original’s surprise factor, director Landon focuses more on the time loop plot device.

Consequently, the establishment of the world involves more entertaining and mindless possibilities. While the 2017 film had aspirations of a genre-bender, with one wobbly foot in the grave and the other on the stage of a comedy club; the sequel is the sturdier film. The trappings of horror are still there like the knife-wielding killer, suddenly emerging from darkness, but overall the tone is more comedy with a smattering of sci-fi, all in the name of giving Tree a character arc that furthers her journey of self-discovery.

Tree’s development into being a better person was a highlight of the original, it added an interesting dynamic to the story. Tree continues to grow and I have to hand it to writer/director Landon for developing the characters further with new aspects without just repeating the same arc. With Tree facing the same scenario but with many changes, the characters are the same yet completely different and it keeps things intriguing. Without getting into spoilers, here the decisions Tree has to make in this film are difficult and emotionally draining.

Babyface is also back, though he’s more of a subplot in this film. The body count in this film is much lower in a sense because of this, but the film makes up for it in other ways. However, the best part of the film is that while it is inventive, it retains a lot of what worked previously.

The sense of humor carries over and there’s more than enough funny material to go around. Partway through the film, director Landon stages a montage of cheery suicides that Tree commits to avoid the terror of being murdered. The sequence is buoyed by Tree’s exuberant approach to her method of death, such as toasting with a bottle of bleach before downing its contents in the cleaning aisle of a grocery store. I laughed a lot throughout it was key that they kept things light to keep the pace up.

However, I did have a few complaints, for example like the first one, the film borders on having too many twists in the finale, making the climax seem a little overstuffed. They also jam some of the more juvenile bits of humor in the very beginning and the very end of the film that can feel a little out of place tonally. For example, the extended scene in which Danielle provides a diversion by pretending to be blind and also French. It doesn’t play well and it doesn’t add anything.

Nevertheless, a big part of why this film works so well is the exceptional screen appeal of Jessica Rothe who holds the film together with her tenacity and charisma. The fact that she is not headlining more films after her star turn in the first film baffles me. Here, her performance is convincing and entertaining throughout; whether she is wielding an axe or waking up with her hair frizzed from electricity, the actor entirely owns it. The film requires so much varied work from her doing physical comedy to involving drama and she pulls it off handily. She’s outstanding here and I really hope she’s on her way to bigger things because this is a great follow up performance.

Israel Broussard continues to be a likable aspect of this series, his chemistry with Rothe is what mainly anchors the whole film. The franchise’s returning actors, Phi Vu and Rachel Matthews, excel with more substantiated roles in the sequel. While Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine, Missy Yager, Charles Aitken and Steve Zissis all handle their parts well and add to the fun factor. On the whole, ‘Happy Death Day 2U’ is a wildly creative sequel that delivers equal thrills and more laughs than its predecessor.