Happy Death Day Review

Before going to “Happy Death Day,” my intentions were to be scared. But, barely halfway through the movie, I realized that it should be listed as a comedy. The movie was not scary at all. The main character, named Teresa,goes by the nickname Tree. In the beginning of the story it takes place in a dorm room after a long night of partying. Tree is a cold, rude person, almost like the plastics from Mean Girls. On several occasions in the movie you can see Tree being very ungrateful towards those around her. A prime example of this being when her roommate makes her a cupcake and she refuses to eat it.

The movie takes place on Tree’s birthday. And you’d think that would be a good day, but Tree shares the same birthday as her mother who passed three years ago. He father attempts to call her all day, but she refuses to answer because she doesn’t want to deal with negativity on her birthday. The viewer finds out that Tree losing her mother causes her to be the callous person she is today. But, due to an unexplained event, she suddenly has to relive her birthday over and over again, much like the movie Groundhog’s Day, but with a twist, every day ends with her murder.  

As Tree continues to be killed over and over again she begins to work with her friend Carter to try to figure out who is killing her and why. This would have been a lot more dramatic if her killer wasn’t always wearing a plastic baby doll mask. Tree has many suspects but eventually figures out that it couldn’t be any of them. After several of these relived death days, she goes to the hospital and realizes that she is so internally damaged she should not be alive.

When leaving the hospital, Tree gets killed again by the baby mask murder. So then, when cutting out all of the people she had considered as suspects, she finally realises who it is and succeeds in killing the baby mask murder. Sorry folks, I’m not going to spoil this comedic film by announcing who the murderer was, but I wouldn’t recommend wasting your money or time on this movie. The next day, Tree, to her confusion, finds herself waking up on her birthday again and then finally accepts her roommate’s cupcake, only to find out that it had been poisoned.

A more interesting, and frankly confusing, aspect of the movie was its underlying environmentalist perspective. Most obviously, the character’s name is Tree. She also has a lot of natural decor in her dorm like rocks and feathers. Her killer is always trying to tear her down which may serve as a symbol of deforestation. Alongside that, at the beginning of every day, Tree is confronted by a global warming advocate asking her to sign a petition. Every day Tree has a limited amount of time to find her killer just like we as a society have a limited time to save our earth. This may seem like a stretch at first, but it’s just my attempt to add depth to a movie that I struggled to take seriously.

But overall, if you’re looking for a terrifying thriller that makes you jump out of your chair in fear, this is not the movie for you. But, if you’re looking for a movie to make you laugh at how terrible it is, which I don’t understand why anyone would want, this is the movie for you.