Typically watching a new film has made me choose an older movie to write about in an accompanying review. In this case I actually went backwards. I watched Groundhog Day when a theater near me that has a special screening of a classic every Thursday night chose Groundhog Day the week of this year’s Groundhog Day. I loved it so much I wanted to think of a current release with which I could accompany it. I just happened to watch one a little over a month later!
I’ll be honest-I only watched Happy Death Day 2U because there was a screening I was able to attend at my old place of employment Paramount. I really knew nothing about it in advance-not even the fact that it’s a sequel! Watching it I thought it had what tvtropes.org would call a “Decoy Protagonist” because the first few minutes focused on Ryan. When the focus switched to Theresa (or “Tree” as she’s called) I thought it would continue to alternate as far as who was reliving the day in question. Even when I realized the focus would stay on her I was surprised at how much backstory we got in montage but I didn’t hold against the film the fact that it seemingly hit the ground running; I found it engaging and entertaining.
All that is a long way of saying that you don’t need to watch the original to have seen the sequel; they tell you whatever you missed. It wasn’t until I read the Wikipedia entry for this film that I found out the montage near the beginning of this movie had been its own separate film. It actually sounded like a good movie. That said, it seemed rather different from this one. I’d mark what I’m about to say as a spoiler but if you’re still reading either you’ve seen the original Happy Death Day or you’re fine with just watching the sequel like I did. In any case, it seems like the original is simply a horror mystery with a sci-fi twist. In fact, it was apparently described as “Groundhog Day meets Scream” (I can’t belive I mentioned Scream in two consecutive unrelated posts…) I say “simply” because it doesn’t seem to ask any existential questions that a film with what’s become known as a “Groundhog Day Loop” has the ability to ask. It seems like the only time an issue beyond “How can Tree get out of the loop?” is brought up is when she voluntarily remains in it a little longer to keep Carter from dying.
The sequel is a different story. Although there is a bunch of sci-fi that is such a blatant hand wave to create whatever specific conflicts the filmmakers want that it’s endearingly funny, the main conflict is deeply philosophical. I’ve heard people say that they’re grateful for whatever hardships they’ve endured because they made them the person they are. Ultimately, although we all have things we wish we could go back and change in our lives, we don’t know what ramifications that would have on the present. Would what we lose actually lead to us being worse off?
When I say “we”, I’m not including Tree. As the main character in a movie with this plot, SHE knows. Her path to making the right choice is quite thought provoking and can teach us all a lot.
That’s as much as I can say without giving away too much. So I’ll sum up with this: the film has sci-fi that’s cheesy in a fun way, some great jokes, a surprisingly serious and compelling central conflict, and a lovely performance from Jessica Rothe anchoring the whole thing. You will probably get more out of it if you watch the original first but it’s not necessary.
Up next: I already told you.
Final Verdict: A quite good little film.
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