Happy Death Day: One bad birthday

Happy Death Day is a simple movie. It's slasher Groundhog's Day. College student Theresa gets killed on her birthday, only to wake up at the beginning of the same day to repeat it over and over. She must find a way to figure out her killer, so she can finally wake up the next morning. A concept that could have easily been horrible, is instead a fun, campy slasher.

Let's face it the plot is silly. However, the movie knows this too. It manages to balance the movie well with mystery, horror, and comedy. The plot throws in some decent red herrings, and makes getting to the end of the journey an enjoyable trip. It also does a good job of adding a consequence for each trip back for Theresa.

A great majority of the success of this movie belongs to just how character-driven it is. Many slashers films are over populated with characters the audience is rooting for just to die already. This one however, puts together a group of characters that are likable and the audience can feel empathetic for. Jessica Rothe's performance as Theresa is notable, because of just how strong the performance is. I can't remember the last time a horror character felt this relatable. Rothe handles horror, comedy, and drama very well, as well as making the character arc from unlikable to sympathetic believable.

Love interest Carter, played by Israel Broussard, is also another strong performance. Carter is there for Theresa every morning, helping as much as possible to solve the mystery.

There are some things that bother me with this movie, First off, the killer's mask is just terrible. Why is the mascot for a college a baby? Couldn't it have been anything else that would have made a mask at least somewhat threatening? Also, sometimes it just seems impossible for the killer to know exactly where Theresa would be. This is a common slasher problem, but it really egregious in this movie. Speaking of slashers, this is one, but it sure doesn't look like it. I normally don't care about PG-13 ratings and horror, but it does affect this movie pretty badly. For a movie revolving around deaths happening again, and again, the lack of blood hurts it. The motive for the killer is really weak quite honestly.

I went in expecting this to be at best an okay movie. Instead a got a well done character driven horror film. It does suffer from some issues revolving around the killer, but overall it is well acted, and self aware enough to overcome its issues. It is an enjoyable enough film for this Halloween season.

3.5/5 stars