HAPPY DEATH DAY
Every year I seem to lament the fact that I am calling a
film a “guilty pleasure”. Most of the time these movies are the
sort that are looked down upon by regular critics, which very often
also happen to be horror films in my case. However, there is never a
need to feel guilty for liking these films just because they aren't
as serious or artistic as films that are looked more highly upon.
These so called “guilty pleasures” are made to give the audience
a fun and entertaining time, and if they succeed in doing so, they
can be considered a success.
Now that I have gotten that off of my chest, the film
that I am calling my “guilty pleasure” of 2017 is the very fun
and inventive slasher “Happy Death Day” which was directed by
Christopher Landon. Interestingly, Landon was the director of my
guilty pleasure of 2015 too which was “Scout's Guide to the Zombie
Apocalypse”, so I think it is safe to say that this director has
something that I am drawn to. The plot of “Happy Death Day” is a
horror variation on “Groundhog Day” where we see our protagonist,
named Tree, brutally murdered on her birthday, only to awaken again
to start that day afresh where she is once again killed. Her friend,
Carter, determines that she has unlimited lives until she works out
who killed her and why, but each time Tree keeps returning, she does
so with the “healed” results of her previous murder, suggesting
her time may not actually be unlimited as there is only so much her
body can surely take.
The biggest threat to these kind of films is that, by
their very nature, they have to be repetitive as our main character
continually repeats her day. The brilliance of “Happy Death Day”
is that there is enough variation to keep the film interesting and
while at the start, these variances are small, they end up getting
larger as Tree is determined not to die and find out who is trying to
kill her. I know that a lot of horror fans were not happy with this
film's PG-13 rating, but it did not bother me at all as Landon does
an exceptional job of building suspense leading up to each death. We
never see the moment of impact, or the bloody horror money shot if
you will, but this is because Tree reawakens at this moment. This is
the point of contention for some horror fans as they feel it is a cop
out, but I thought it works totally within the confines of this
story. The fact that Landon does such a great job of building up
these terror sequences counts for a lot, and I actually found all the
chase scenes to be of quite a brutal nature even though on-screen
violence is rare. I actually think that Christopher Landon studied
Wes Craven's “Scream” films because the horror vibe and
atmosphere was very similar here. This film and that series both
have comedic lines within them, but when the horror takes over, the
scenes are handled very seriously.
“Happy Death Day” is another in the long line of
Blumhouse horror productions. I am actually a big fan of the way
Blumhouse makes films, even though I do not like them all. The fact
that they make these horror films without ridiculous sized budgets,
it gives them a freedom to take a chance on an idea that may be new
or outside the usual box, and if it doesn't work, they have not lost
too much on the experiment. However, it is proving to be mostly
successful because I think audiences crave something new and not have
the some old thing crammed down their throats constantly. In my
eyes, “Happy Death Day” is a total success. It may not be
perfect, but it is so much fun, and a throwback to the slasher films
of old whilst giving it a new twist. If you are a horror fan, or
particularly a fan of the 80's slasher classics, I think you owe it
to yourself to at least check out my guilty pleasure of 2017, “Happy
Death Day”, because I think it is destined to become a new horror
cult classic.
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