tek's rating: ½

Happy Death Day (PG-13)
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This came out in 2017, but I didn't see it until 2020, on my birthday.

On her birthday, college student Tree Gelbman wakes up in an unfamiliar dorm room, where she meets Carter Davis. (Well, I guess they had sort of met the night before, but she was too drunk to remember.) She quickly leaves and goes about her day as usual. But that night, someone dressed all in black and wearing a baby mask (apparently the mask represents the college's mascot, or whatever) stalks and kills her. Then she wakes up in Carter's room again, on the same day. She does her best to try to avoid being killed again, but she fails. And wakes up in Carter's room again, on the same day. This happens a bunch of times, though every time she lives through the day she does things differently, so the exact way she dies differs. Sometimes she gets help from Carter in trying to escape her fate, or at least figure out the identity of her killer.

And... there are a number of other characters and plot points I could mention, but I don't think it's that important, and anyway I don't want to spoil any of it. So I'll just say I enjoyed the movie, and thought it did a pretty good job of switching things up throughout each redo of the day. There's some humor, and drama, all of which is okay. There's never any explanation of why Tree kept reliving the day (which kind of puts the movie in the realm of both supernatural and psychological horror, though it remains primarily a slasher film). But I suppose there's no need of an explanation; you just roll with the premise, like you did with Groundhog Day. And I don't know what else to tell you.

Followed by "Happy Death Day 2U"


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