Happy Death Day 2U With Hoyts Cinemas
October 31st 2017 saw a unique horror twist on Bill Murray's extremely popular Groundhog Day with Happy Death Day, a horror movie that saw the main character Tree (played by newbie Jessica Rothe) killed by a mysterious baby-masked killer over and over again, only to wake up the morning of the same day. In order to break the cycle of her constant deaths, Tree had to figure out which of her friends, teachers, lovers, and sorority sisters were doing the dirty deed.
For a modern day horror movie, it was extremely unique, and you actually came to like the character of Tree as a person despite her being introduced as a complete and utter bitch. There was a moment in the movie where it seemed liked it would all go stupid, but spoiler alert, it actually made a good twist at the end and Tree was able to finish her unending cycle of death.
Or so we thought.
It seemed like it would be the end of it, but our bloodlust is apparently too strong to ignore when it comes to horror movies because Happy Death Day 2U has reached our cinemas on Valentine's Day (very befitting a broken heart like mine). In a classic Back to the Future style setting, Tree finds herself re-entering her earth shattering time loop in order to determine why she was entered into it in the first place and where the loop came from. As Tree and her friends face more baby masked killers, she must also continue to avoid the revenge-seeking killer from the first movie, who has come back to haunt her in the same time loop but now has a different face,
The confusion of Happy Death Day was minimal, but Happy Death Day 2U has more holes than a colander. Starting with a time loop that focuses on the "fine vagina!" catchphrase loving blonde haired Asian Ryan, which answers the question of why the time loop appeared (connecting the random rolling black outs featured in the first film) but adds a shit ton more questions by adding a duplicate character into the mix. Then it throws Tree back into the same loop in a different dimension (why Tree? Why not Ryan? Why not anyone else? Did everyone else go toa weird dimension as well? Will that be the third movie? WHY?!)
From there, it gets super complicated as they rewrite the first movie with some new surprises, add in some classic slapstick so we can like the character of Danielle more, actually make us like the character of Laurie, and laugh in delight as Tree kills herself again and again (falling from a jet in a bikini to land in front of her boyfriend, and running in complete running gear into a wood chipper).
Happy Death Day 2u had me pondering the holes well past leaving the theatre and had me hoping to close the poked holes with a third installment - but was it actually good? I can't decide. The first one was definitely better, and this second installment plays on all the aspects that made the first movie good, but if they don't create a Happy Death Day 3 some heads will roll.. The questions need answers, if there are no plans to answer them then the overall movie falls flat.
But for a unique horror movie, it still makes for good watching and if you enjoyed the first one it is unlikely that you wouldn't enjoy this one either.
I give three out of five stars,
Out now in Australian cinemas
