'Happy Death Day 2U' Review
The first Happy Death Day was a pretty neat, if not very low stakes Blumhouse production and kind of the exemplifier of their format. It was a slightly above average, cheap, and brief horror/slasher with a kind of neat twist, i.e. Groundhog Day, but I'm being murdered. There was nothing really exemplary about it, compared to other BH productions that came out that year (Get Out, The Belko Experiment, Creep 2 or Ouija 2) but what it had going for it was a slightly fun black comedy tone, along with a campy but dedicated performance by Jessica Rothe as the heroine and trashy college girl, Tree. If I had reviewed when it came out, I probably would've given it a 2.5-3/5.
The sequel is basically more of the same, though this time it fully leans into the comedy and surprisingly a new element of scifi. This time around Tree is stuck in another time loop with another killer, but with the added twist of the her friends also being targeted and entering the time loop as well. In a way the new plot element is similar to Edge of Tomorrow, where the veteran Tree has to guide her the rookie in the art of repeatedly dying. It allows for greater comedy as we get a new group dynamic that wasn't present in the first film. Team building but with the consequence of failure being a painful death. Also the film takes a greater tongue n cheek tone since Tree responds to being back in a deadly time loop with more indignant annoyance than fear.
There's really not much else to say about the film without spoiling the story, but I can I mostly laughed when I was supposed to. The same issues from the last movie are present: The PG-13 rating doesn't allow for any interesting kills. The soundtrack and music are kind of annoying and overbearing at times. The acting is meh. It's all pretty campy, so your reception of it will kind of depend on how willing you are to deal with it. And like the first film, while the build is good, the actual revelation of who the killer is really underwhelming.
But overall I can say I enjoyed the film enough, and had a good time, even though I'll probably forget about it in a week.
