Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
Directed by Christopher Landon
Collegian Tree Gelbman wakes up in horror to learn that she's stuck in a parallel universe. Her boyfriend Carter is now with someone else, and her friends and fellow students seem to be completely different versions of themselves. When Tree discovers that Carter's roommate has been altering time, she finds herself once again the target of a masked killer. When the psychopath starts to go after her inner circle, Tree soon realizes that she must die over and over again to save everyone.
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6 films that influenced Happy Death Day 2U
What critics say influenced Happy Death Day 2U
By substituting a sleepy small town with a college campus and an underachieving sorority girl for a middle-aged weatherman, Landon and writer Scott Lobdell got to play with the tropes of the post-Scream campus slasher movie, with Jessica Rothe’s heroine Tree emerging as an ingenious variation on the idea of the Final Girl .
The hook to 2017’s Happy Death Day was a killer one – Groundhog Day by way of Scream.
The first film, Happy Death Day (essentially, Scream meets Groundhog Day ) saw sleepy-eyed blond co-ed Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe, who I can't help thinking should be called Blake Livelier) waking up, repeatedly, in an unfamiliar dorm bed, where a sweetly geeky stranger, Carter Davis (Israel Broussard, who resembles a young Tom Hanks) would greet her before his room-mate Ryan, (Phi Vu) would burst into the room.
If 2017’s surprise time-loop slasher Happy Death Day was rightfully called a mash-up of Groundhog Day and Scream, then its follow-up, Happy Death Day 2U can be called a strange combination of Weird Science, The Butterfly Effect , and any episode of Scooby-Doo .
In Happy Death Day, Christopher Landon’s original campus fantasy horror, it was Tree (Jessica Rothe) who was trapped in this grisly but rather enjoyable mixture of Groundhog Day and Scream.
Moreover, unlike the characters in Wes Craven’s meta-slasher franchise Scream (1996-2011), HDD2U’s characters don’t seem to be aware of B-movie conventions.
Back to the Future joins Groundhog Day as an influence.
In terms of tone, Happy Death Day 2U represents a lateral move away from the horror genre and toward sci-fi—specifically, a strain of ’80s-style revenge-of-the-nerds narratives à la Weird Science , Misfits of Science , and, at the top of the heap, Back to the Future.
Happy Death Day 2U is a corrupted wish; on one hand, the narrative is pushing the envelope further, turning it into Groundhog Day meets Back to the Future meets slasher movies, but bafflingly it takes all of those things and also meets Happy Death Day, an experience that has not even aged two full years yet.
The film that Happy Death Day 2U riffs on, rather brilliantly, is Back to the Future: Part 2 – a film which itself revisited the events of the events of the first film from a different perspective.
Though the “Groundhog Day” formula is still in play, Landon imbues “2U” with the kind of ramping tension and third act finale that actually feels a bit more like the “Back to the Future” trilogy, which gets referenced in this pop culture-savvy film.
The previous film called itself out as the spiritual successor to “Groundhog Day,” and its sequel acknowledges its debt to the “Back to the Future” trilogy at every turn.
Landon, who was a writer on Paranormal Activity , remains gifted at using rhythm and repetition to get laughs, and establishes a sense of visual and stylistic continuity with the original.
Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions may have produced a trio of Oscar-nominated movies-- BlaKkKlansman, Whiplash and Get Out - but the meat in the company's grinder are such low-budget horror film franchises as Insidious , The Purge and Paranormal Activity , that, occasionally, are more clever than they need to be.
Blumhouse Productions is responsible for putting out big horror hits on micro budgets ranging from "Get Out" and "Split" to "Paranormal Activity."
Writer-director Christopher Landon, woh directed the first “Happy Death Day” and a few of the “Paranormal Activity” sequels, references early on the inspiration for this sequel: “Back to the Future Part II.” It’s a fair comparison, because Landon takes the structure of the first “Happy Death Day” and tweaks it in some creative ways to bring a fresh perspective — and a new mystery — to the familiar scenario of the first movie.
Landon, who’s no stranger to the genre or Blumhouse having written quite a few “Paranormal Activity” films and directed “The Marked Ones,” has also taken over writing duties here from Scott Lobdell.
But, boy, are they ever in the sequel “Happy Death Day 2U,” written and directed by Christopher Landon, who directed the original film and penned several films from the “Paranormal Activity” franchise.
Landon has a lot of chance to completely repeat a lot of what “Happy Death Day” covered, but the sequel thankfully drops the “Groundhog’s Day” scenario in favor of something in line with “The Butterfly Effect.”
If 2017’s surprise time-loop slasher Happy Death Day was rightfully called a mash-up of Groundhog Day and Scream, then its follow-up, Happy Death Day 2U can be called a strange combination of Weird Science, The Butterfly Effect , and any episode of Scooby-Doo .
The movie’s concept is part “Groundhog Day” with a shaker of “The Butterfly Effect,” as Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), as she did in the original, relives the same day over and over, trying to keep from being murdered.
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But it still has Rothe, of “La La Land,” over 30 and showing some miles, but giving her all to reprising her sorority girl Buffy the Mad Slasher Slayer trapped in “Edge of Tomorrow.”
It’s the plot of Groundhog Day , but it’s also the plot of several other notable titles: Edge of Tomorrow , the recent Netflix series Russian Doll , and of course, Happy Death Day , the clever slasher flick from 2017.
Whether it’s the Harold Ramis original, the sci-fi tinged “Edge of Tomorrow” or the 2011 thriller “Source Code,” all of these films have been self-contained experiences.
Was actually the tagline (and better title) to 2014 cyclical sci-fi Edge Of Tomorrow , but it pretty fairly sums up several similarly themed Groundhog Day -style films and TV shows of the last decade – including 2011’s Source Code , Netflix’s latest buzzy existential comedy that we’re not naming for reasons of spoilers, certain bits of The Good Place , Marlon Wayan’s comedy Naked and, of course, Happy Death Day .
She has to explain her situation again but happily for us, the recaps — as in the time-looping Edge of Tomorrow — are elided.
Whether it’s the Harold Ramis original, the sci-fi tinged “Edge of Tomorrow” or the 2011 thriller “Source Code,” all of these films have been self-contained experiences.
Was actually the tagline (and better title) to 2014 cyclical sci-fi Edge Of Tomorrow , but it pretty fairly sums up several similarly themed Groundhog Day -style films and TV shows of the last decade – including 2011’s Source Code , Netflix’s latest buzzy existential comedy that we’re not naming for reasons of spoilers, certain bits of The Good Place , Marlon Wayan’s comedy Naked and, of course, Happy Death Day .