Review of Happy Death Day (2017) by 4Everafter — 18 Dec 2022

The writing is bad. None of it makes any sense.

1. She can't defend herself against a skinny woman to such an extent that she dies 15 times? Why doesn't she get a gun? Why doesn't she get a machete? Why doesn't she wear armour?

2. Why doesn't she just get in a car and drive away? That would be the first thing I did if I kept dying on campus.

3. When she does drive away, the killer (who goes to extraordinary lengths not to be identifiable) runs over a police officer and then just stands there in the middle of the road for a while... This is for cinematic effect but it further reduces plausibility. Why does she have to kill her so desperately on that day? Does she (or does she not) care about being caught?

4. The same events always happen when she walks out of the dorm in the morning, despite at one point explaining her entire story to Carter before leaving the building. Everybody also says exactly the same sentences despite radically different behaviour from the protag. Both of these type of mistakes are typical of bad time loop films and I can forgive them... but the writing is just sloppy.

5. The girl that is trying to kill her seems to have supernatural powers. A music box starts playing by itself, at one point. But - beyond that - she's always one step ahead. She appears silently inside rooms. She always knows exactly where to be. She effortlessly kills numerous full grown men, to get to the protag.

...

If you want to watch a time loop film, watch Groundhog Day or Palm Springs or Edge of Tomorrow or Source Code.

This movie is super-overrated. The thriller parts (and the twist) are badly written. The comedy isn't funny.

Avoid.