Mild jokes, jolts in college thriller
Once you report the novelty that “Happy Death Day” is a PG-13 slasher film, and that it’s an unexpected twist on the “Groundhog Day” gimmick, there’s little left to say except that it’s standard movie mall fodder — that is, pretty dumb stuff.
With the teen demographic in mind, the film is set on a college campus and involves a mean-girl sorority sister ( Jessica Rothe of “La La Land”) who gets her comeuppance in the form of a knife-wielding maniac in a baby mask and has to relive the day of her death until she identifies her killer. As these things go, “Happy Death Day” is tame, mainly sidestepping slasher jolts to stress its comedic portrayal of college life and the young woman’s possible redemption.
Our heroine, named Tree, begins her adventure by waking up after a night of hard partying in the dorm room of a nice boy (Israel Broussard) whose name she can’t recall. She returns to her own room after encountering the horrendously awful president of her sorority (Rachel Matthews), and we learn it is Tree’s birthday. After insulting her roomie, she runs off to a class being taught by a professor with whom she is having an affair.
On the way to a party that evening, she encounters a black-robed figure with a mask that merges the images of a baby and, say, Porky Pig (look for it this Halloween!). She is murdered, only to wake up again in the boy’s dorm room. Director Christopher Landon (“Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse”) milks some mild collegiate-life laughs out of her plight, and keeps the tension level fairly low.
Most of the joking is uninspired, and there’s a girl-power theme that seems stitched in to keep the plot rolling. The sendup of college life isn’t particularly original, and the attempts at red herrings are unlikely to fool anyone. There is, in addition, a mawkish meeting between Tree and her dad — it’s her birthday, after all — that feels ginned up.
Expectations for this movie were fairly high, since It was produced by Blumhouse Productions, responsible for the surprise hits “Get Out” and “Paranormal Activity.” Despite its sometimes bloody content, the mood of “Happy Death Day” is remarkably sappy, aimed at the broadest possible audience for a film of its genre. Think of it as “slasher lite” and an acceptable date movie for unadventurous types, and you have the gist of it.