Summary
If you’re going to make a time loop sequel, you may as well do it with style. Besides, the stainless steel construction makes the flux dispersal…look out!
A sequel to Happy Death Day might be the one thing that makes sense in this crazy workaday world. The subversively clever 2017 film was the lovechild of Groundhog Day and Scream, cognisant of its own influences while sharply aware that younger audiences could care less about the 1990s. HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U is simply here to have fun. Party.
Picking up right after the events of the first film, we learn that ‘dickhead’ roommate Ryan (Phi Vu) is now caught in his own time loop and being hunted by a killer. Yet instead of simply repeating the formula with a different set of players, writer and director Christopher Landon (who directed Scott Lobdell’s script last time) subverts expectations by introducing quantum mechanics, multiverses, and other twisty stories within stories.
Any fear that an over-explanation of the time travel elements is swiftly forgotten with the reintroduction of Tree (Jessica Rothe) and her fledgling boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard). Landon deftly steers the film from straight-up horror to sci-fi comedy caper as Tree once again gets caught in a familiar loop but with a very different series of encounters to the last lot of times that she went through.
The focus is less on the whodunnit than it is on boldly having fun with the multiversal direction Landon has steered the franchise into. Just like Tree’s investigative montage in the first film, she repeatedly dies (again) in increasingly bizarre ways so she can memorise a formula needed to get back to her normal life. Some of these deaths make no literal sense, but Tree skydiving without a parachute (and wearing a bikini) is part of the anarchic silliness Landon embraces.
Each of the characters are given a little more depth this time around as well. From the get-go, the one-joke Ryan is revealed to be a student of quantum physics and is surrounded by intelligent characters. The surprisingly emotional core comes from Tree’s chance to reconnect with her deceased mother (Miss Yager) and gives the lead’s choices a deeper sense of urgency.
With almost double the budget of the first film – from a mere US$4.8 million to a modest $9 million – Landon allows himself a few more special effects this time around. Most of these are on the device Ryan and his team are working on, but it also allows for a little bit more scope in the various death montages the series is rapidly becoming known for.
Which is where this sequel really succeeds: it expands the Happy Death Day world, giving it the potential to be another big franchise series for the Blumhouse gang. Make sure you sit through the credits for a little stinger that indicates where it will go next. It’s not strictly horror, comedy, or sci-fi, but it is straight-up fun.
2019 | US | DIR: Christopher Landon | WRITERS: Christopher Landon | CAST: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 February 2019 (AUS)
