Sequel will leave many Happy faces
Happy Death Day 2U (M, 100 mins) Directed by Christopher Landon Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
Ayear or so back, Happy Death Day was an unexpected preview treat late one Wednesday night. Unexpected, because I walked in knowing nothing about the film at all, but was ready for not much more than a teen-slasher throwback. And a treat, because what went up on the screen was a carefully crafted, devilishly well thought through and truly funny wee gem.
A young woman named Teresa ‘‘Tree’’ Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) wakes up to find she is trapped in a time loop, cursed to live the same day for eternity until she solves her own grisly murder at the hands of a baby-masked maniac. Every reviewer in the world, me included, called it ‘‘Groundhog Day-meetsScream’’ and then went to the pub to drink a toast to our own wit.
Still, a sequel? How’s that going to work, without being just a lazy retread of the original?
Writer-director Christopher Landon – who directed, but did not write the first film – solves the problem with some neat sleight-ofhand. It turns out that the young kid who burst in on Teresa every morning is a physics whiz with a doohickey in the basement that can open doorways to alternative dimensions. And it is from there that all this nonsense began.
Happy Death Day 2U suffers a little from its need to explain the mechanics of what is happening to Tree. When a plot is this simple but this daft, it really is better left unexamined. (Did anyone ever need to know how Bill Murray was stuck in Groundhog Day?)
What works here is what worked first time around. The jokes and gags come thick and fast. The horror scenes are competently staged. And there is a level of wit and detail in the film that speaks loudly of film-makers who truly love the process and the craft. Also, Rothe is again outstanding as Tree, with comedy chops that would put most of the Saturday Night Live
crew to shame. If you loved Happy Death Day, then I reckon you will be pretty happy with this sequel.
There is a level of wit and detail that speaks loudly of film-makers who truly love the process.