I absolutely love the first Happy Death Day. It was one of the biggest surprises of the year, and such a blast to watch. How on earth is a sequel gonna measure up?
Okay stay with me here. In the first film, sorority girl Tree finds herself reliving the same day over and over again, which always ends the same way: killed by a psycho in a baby mask. She’s able to break the loop once she figures out who the killer is and kills them first. Happy Death Day 2 U begins with the loop passed on to another student. They quickly figure out the connection to that student’s mysterious science project, but an attempt to put things back in order sends Tree back to her original loop. Except something seems a little different this time….
Where the first was a horror/comedy, this one is more of a scifi/comedy. Yeah there’s still a psycho in a baby mask, but the focus isn’t on trying to not be killed but on trying to fix the science. It’s less Groundhog Day and more Back to the Future Part II.
Honestly, I’m still not sure how I feel about this movie. Some of it felt very different, but some of it felt very familiar. I appreciate them trying something new because you need that to move a sequel forward, but it was the familiar bits that I enjoyed most. Tree is still the best part of the film, but it took a while to get to her and thus took me a while to get into the story.
I guess I really don’t know what I wanted out of this. Did I want to see more of the same, or did I want something completely different? Mostly because I know that giving the audience the same experience will never be as good, but I still don’t know if I liked this new direction. Rumor has it there’s a third on the horizon to complete a trilogy, so maybe I’ll need to see the whole picture before I can really get what’s going on.
Happy Death Day 2 U – \m/ \m/ \m/