My Review of 'Happy Death Day'

I have to admit I'm a sucker for the movie Groundhog Day. They've been making a few movies that follow the repeating day situation in movies like Edge of Tomorrow, Naked, and the recent Netflix exclusive TV show Russian Doll. So it's not a new premise and movie studios are trying to expose it as much as they can. It's a fun concept that some of us think about. What would we do if we had to repeat a day over and over again.

Happy Death Day stars Jessica Rothe as Tree. She's a college student and belongs in a sorority. It so happens that it's also her birthday. By the end of the day there is this mysterious killer that will kill her and reset her to the morning of her birthday.

The problem is that she's kind of a rotten person. So there's a ton of people that would have motive to kill her. Audience members might not even identify with her because she's terrible in the beginning. I was even thinking, "Am I going to be cheering on this character? I hope she's not like this throughout this movie."

I like the fact that after each day she's revived we learn new things about the people she meets and her own back story. It does go through some twists and turns that are clever and fun. I also like the fact that there's a finite amount of times that she can repeat the days. This gives her a sense of urgency to figure out who the killer is.

It's marketed as a horror movie, but I have to say, I didn't think this movie was scary at all. I had no sense of suspense or any fear for the character. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if it was because I didn't care about the character as she was such a horrible person or that they didn't execute the scares correctly. As the movie went on I started to feel as though the horror aspect of the movie wasn't really the movie's prime directive.

Horror fans will definitely be disappointed in this. It's somewhat more of a drama than anything. You learn more about her relationships and see how she herself needs to grow and fix herself. I guess that portion of the movie is pretty predictable.

Still, during the movie I was still trying to figure out who the killer was. They started to eliminate characters as the possible murderer and then they make a clever change up on the viewers. I liked that. Everything makes sense and I think it was cleverly written.

All of the actors did a great job. I think they chose the right cast for this movie as well. There are some pretty stereotypical characters in this movie to make us all feel as though it's a college. There could be a complaint that a lot of the characters are one dimensional, but this isn't an art-piece movie.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie, but wasn't scared at all. As a horror movie it pretty much fails at all levels. It's not scary at all, so don't go watch this movie if you're looking for a scary movie. As an enjoyable movie I would say that it delivers. It's entertaining, fun, and re-watchable. I was engaged and was trying to figure out who the killer was when I was watching the movie. If I'm going to rate this movie as an enjoyable movie, I would have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. If I'm rating this movie as a horror movie, I would have to give this movie a 3 out of 10.