Review of Happy Death Day (2017) by Dirigiblepulp — 01 Dec 2017

Groundhog Day as a slasher flick is such a ripe premise that I'm surprised it took this long to make a film of it. We get to watch the main character get butchered a whole bunch of times in a bunch of different ways by a masked psycho all while trying to solve the mystery of whom is doing it. It's perfect really. The film definitely has its fun with this too, and has a game performance from the lead actress Jessica Rothe.

Unfortunately it's a bit of a neutered affair, what with the PG-13 rating and fairly rote storytelling mechanics. Death scenes are less Final Destination levels of fun - where the surprise is how she will die while trying to avoid death - and more stalk and slash and quick cut away from any good gore. The plot has a twist, and it's not bad, but there were a lot of areas where the film could have become even twistier. It also could have laid off the moralizing about becoming a better woman stuff a bit - this is slasher Groundhog Day, not actually the real thing. We already have that.