Happy Death Day was directed by Christopher Landon and stars Jessica Rother as Tree Glebman, a young college student who relives the day of her murder over, until she can discover her killers identity. I was actually pretty excited for this movie. I really enjoy the horror comedy genre of film making. I absolutely adore movies like The Evil Dead, Cooties, Tucker and Dale vs Evil or Shaun of the Dead. So my expectations of Happy Death Day were already a little higher. While it wasn't a great movie, it was one that I really did enjoy and I recommend you see. While Happy Death Day is very reminiscent of so many different films, especially the original Scream (a movie I love) it had enough original content to keep it fresh.
Let's take a look at some of the things that I enjoyed.
1. Direction- This movie really worked because of the direction by Christopher Landon. His direction of this movie was so precise and stylized. His scenes felt fluid and not jumbled up. He utilized a lot of similar scene transitions to make the movie flow nice. This is something Edgar Wright did extremely well in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. By having these similar scene transitions, it helps guide the audience in a very natural way. It was also used for comedic timing as well, which I appreciated. Landon also chose to use different color grades and camera tricks to sell emotions. Primarily some of his dolly shots early on to sell some of the more "scary" moments. I really liked the direction that Landon put into this movie. He crafted well executed scenes and fluidity that I enjoyed.
2. Tone and Comedy- I was surprised by this aspect of the movie definitely. I thought it was going to be a horror movie with some comedic moments, but it was the exact opposite. It was a comedy that played with some horror movie tropes. The comedy in this movie worked for the most part. While it was not the best, it was genuinely entertaining. The tone throughout Happy Death Day also shifts quite frequently. Most of the time I would hate this is a movie, but once again Landon knew how to direct these tonal shifts in a way that it benefited the scenes and the movie as a whole.
Now this movie did have some flaws.
1. Continuity Errors- This is mainly due to the writing of Happy Death Day. It had the big reveal of the killer during the 3rd act, but after you know who the killer is.. it didn't really make that much sense. It also introduced an interesting idea of how each death carries over to the next, leaving Tree with injuries and that she can't do it forever
2. Ending- This movie ended very abruptly and had me saying "huh?" which is never a good thing. The ending of this film was dragged out and had a few different endings. In my opinion, one of the false endings was so much cleaner and better than the real one. So when it was back tracked and undone, I had already gotten emotionally involved leading to the actual ending not being as satisfying.
3. Scares- The scares in this movie weren't bad, they weren't false and the original one was actually pretty well done. That being said, they were very few and far between. This was sad, I really enjoyed the first act that switched so fluidly from comedy to horror. So when the horror aspect was virtually abandoned later on I was a little disappointed.
Overall, I had a pretty good time with Happy Death Day. Christopher Landon really crafted a pretty good looking film that had me engaged right up until the very end of the movie. Happy Death Day did at times suffer from some writing errors and confusing plot. I would've like to see more horror aspects to the movie as they were some of my favorite parts. That being said I had a genuinely fun time with Happy Death Day, largely due to the direction on Christopher Landon. I am going to give Happy Death Day a B-.
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