Film Review: Happy Death Day 2U (dir by Christopher B. Landon)

Posted on June 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that, when I first heard that Blumhouse was going to be producing a sequel to 2017’s Happy Death Day, I wasn’t surprised. After all, every successful horror film gets a sequel. That’s just the way the business work. However, I will admit to being very skeptical.

I mean, the first film was a genuinely clever and witty mix of Groundhog Day and Scream. It was often laugh-out-loud funny and, in a perfect world, Jessica Rothe’s lead performance as Tree Geldman would have been nominated for, at the very least, a Golden Globe. It was also a surprisingly effective horror film. The Baby Face Killer was as frightening as she was ludicrous. Still, at the end of the film, it was hard not to feel that Tree’s story was finished. When I heard there was a sequel, I was like, “What? Is she going to start reliving a second day with a new killer over and over again?”

Well, it turns out that I was partially correct about the plot but I was pretty much wrong in my skepticism. This is a sequel that works surprisingly well.

In Happy Death Day 2U, Tree once again finds herself having to live September 18th over and over again. However, this time, it’s not just so Tree can become a better human being and discover who is targeting her. This time, we actually find out why Tree ended up stuck in that time loop in the first place. It turns out that Carter’s (Israel Broussard, returning from the first film) roommate, Ryan (Phil Vu), has built some sort of experimental quantum reactor and, whenever it’s turned on, it can create time loops and send people to alternate realities. It’s all very science-y and director Christopher B. Landon is smart enough not to spend too much time lingering over all the details. Everyone in the film agrees that quantum reactor does what they say that it does and that’s really all we need to know.

Anyway, Tree is once again reliving her birthday but now, she’s reliving it in an alternate reality. That means that there’s a bunch of little difference to deal with. For one thing, even though someone is still determined to kill her, it’s no longer her roommate, Lori (Ruby Modine). For another thing, Carter is now dating the wonderfully shallow Danielle (Rachel Matthews). Perhaps the biggest change of all is that Tree’s mother (played by Missy Yager) is still alive in this alternate reality.

Not wanting to lose her mother for a second time, Tree decides that she wants to stay in this new reality. But, to do this, the time loop that was opened by the big science thing needs to be closed. Otherwise, Tree is going to be doomed to keep reliving the same day over and over again….

And it get even more complicated from there. Happy Death Day 2U is an extremely busy film, mixing Back To The Future-style science fiction with the Groundhog Day/slasher film plot of the first film. And yet, surprisingly, the sequel actually works really well. If the first film was a horror film with elements of comedy, this sequel is a straight-out comedy that cheerfully satirizes both the horror and the science fiction genres.

Jessica Rothe gives another wonderful performance in the lead role. Her fury upon discovering that she’s going to have to relive September 18th all over again is both funny and relatable. The film’s emotional heart is found in Tree’s relationship with her mother and the scene where Tree discovers that she now has pictures that document years of new memories with her mom is wonderfully played Rothe and is one of the best in the film. That scene brought tears to my mismatched eyes. I lost my mom a little over ten years ago so, in that moment, it didn’t matter that there was a Babyface Killer out there or that there was some sort of quantum reactor doing something. At that moment, I knew exactly what Tree was feeling and the movie’s emotions became very real.

Happy Death Day 2U took me by surprise. While it may not have the freshness of the first film (and really, that’s to be expected when it comes to sequels), it’s still a heartfelt and entertaining mix of comedy, horror, and science fiction. Unfortunately, it did not duplicate the first film’s box office success so it may be the final Death Day film.

Then again, Tree’s earned a few days off….

Horror Film Review: Happy Death Day (dir by Christopher B. Landon)

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, imagine this.

You’re a college student. You’re a member of a sorority. You start your day by waking up in a stranger’s bed, with a hangover. When you walk across campus, you blow off the girl trying to get you to sign her anti-climate change petition. When you get back to your sorority house, you’re rude to her roommate and refuse to eat the birthday cupcake that she made for you. You body shame a girl at lunch. You’re sleeping with one of your professors. You’re rude to your father. You’re going to a party.

Oh! And did I mention that you’re in a slasher film and that there’s a really creepy figure wearing a baby mask who is following you around?

Seriously, you are so dead.

That’s the situation that Theresa “Tree” Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) finds herself in 2017’s Happy Death Day. It’s her birthday and, unfortunately, she’s murdered at the end of it. Of course, if you’ve ever seen in a slasher film, it’s not a shock when Tree dies. She’s the quintessential self-centered girl who always gets killed in these type of movies.

(For the record, I would probably die within the first ten minutes of any slasher film.)

However, in Tree’s case, she gets another chance. And then another one after that. And then, another one after that… every night, Tree dies. Every morning, Tree wakes up in the dorm room of Carter Davis (Israel Broussard) and she has to relive the last day of her life all over again.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t take long for Tree to realize that she’s in a time loop. (Also, to the film’s credit, Carter specifically points out that Tree’s story sounds exactly like the plot of Groundhog Day. “What’s that?” Tree asks. Carter explains that it’s a film with Bill Murray. “Who’s Bill Murray?” Tree replies.) Once Tree figures out that she’s going to have to keep living the same day over and over again, she sets out trying not to die. She doesn’t go to the party but that just means that the killer comes to her. She tries to spend a day barricaded in her dorm room, just to find that the killer is hiding in a corner. She follows the various suspects around as they go about their day. It seems like no matter what she does, she can’t keep the killer from catching her.

On the plus side, as a result of having to deal with the same crap over and over again, she does become a better person. She’s less rude and condescending. She grows more confident in herself and stops worrying so much about what everyone else is going to think about her. Of course, becoming a better person isn’t going to do her much good if she keeps dying every night….

Happy Death Day is a clever combination of horror and comedy. It’s a movie that’s smart enough not take itself too seriously. Even when Tree becomes a nicer person, both the character and the film retain their sarcastic edge. Even when she learns to face the world with positivity and happiness, the film seems to be gently mocking the ease by which film characters can go from being self-centered to thoroughly altruistic. Meanwhile, the killer may be frightening but again, the film mines plenty of dark humor from the character’s pure determination. No matter Tree does, that killer eventually shows up.

It’s a precarious balancing act, trying to be scary and funny at the same time. Fortunately, Happy Death Day benefits from a clever script and a good lead performance from Jessica Rothe. Rothe gives an intelligent and empathetic performance as Tree. It’s impossible not to sympathize with her frustration as she wakes up to discover that she has to go through the exact same day yet again. It’s a sign of the strength of Rothe’s performance that you sympathize with Tree even before she becomes a nicer person.

Happy Death Day is a clever film and one that I’m surprised to say I missed when it was originally released. If you also missed it, now’s a great time to catch it!

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #19: Jack of the Red Hearts (dir by Janet Grillo)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 10th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 19th film on my DVR was Jack of The Red Hearts, which I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on April 27th.

I have to admit that I was a little bit surprised as I watched Jack of the Red Hearts. While it seemed to have a typical Lifetime premise — a runaway fakes her identity and moves in with a troubled family — it didn’t feel like a typical Lifetime film. For one thing, the cast was made up of actors like Soul Surfer‘s AnnaSophia Robb, The Bling Ring‘s Israel Broussard, and the X-Men‘s Famke Janssen. None of these people are exactly big stars but they’re still not Lifetime regulars. While the premise may have been Lifetime-friendly, the portrayal of an 11 year-old autistic girl (played by Taylor Richardson) definitely seemed a bit more realistic than one would usually expect from a made-for-TV movie. Finally, there were more than a few occasions when it was obvious that some of the dialogue had been overdubbed, in order to make the language more appropriate for television.

So, I did some research and I discovered that Jack of the Red Hearts was not originally made for Lifetime. Instead, it’s an indie film that was directed by Janet Grillo and written by Jennifer Deaton, both of whom drew on their own experiences of raising an autistic child. Jack of the Red Hearts did the festival circuit in 2015 and even got a very limited theatrical release back in February.

Jack of the Red Hearts tells the story of Jack (AnnaSophia Robb), an 18 year-old high school drop out who is on probation. When we first meet Jack, she’s helping her younger sister, Coke (Sophia Anna Caruso), break out of foster care. AnnaSophia and Sophia Anna are both totally believable as sisters and their scenes together are so believable that you even forgive the fact that they’re named Jack and Coke. Jack wants to take care of her sister but she’s broke and she’s homeless. In order to rescue Coke from the foster home, Jack has to get a job and enough money to rent an apartment.

And what better way to get a job than by stealing someone else’s identity! After Jack sees some flyers asking “Are you good with children?,” she shows up at the home of Kay (Famke Janssen) and Mark (Scott Cohen). Jack claims that her name is Donna and that she’s the nanny that Kay previously hired over the telephone. Despite having neither training nor a high school degree, Jack is soon taking care of autistic Glory (Taylor Richardson).

Glory is nonverbal and sometimes violent and her family, while loving, struggles to adjust to not only her behavior but also their inability to understand what the world is like for her. (The film occasionally tries to show us the world through Glory’s eyes and it works a lot better than you might expect.) When Jack initially reacts to Glory’s behavior by snapping at her and occasionally getting rough (at one point, she slaps away Glory’s hand when Glory suddenly tries to grab food off her plate), you wince but at the same time, you understand Jack’s frustration. Richardson, who is not autistic in real life, fully commits herself to the role and the film deserves a lot of credit for not sentimentalizing her condition or its effect on her family. Unlike most Lifetime films, this one takes place in a frequently cluttered and chaotic house and Kay is portrayed as literally being on the verge of a neurotic meltdown.

Though it takes a while, Jack starts to care about Glory and finally, she even starts to make some progress with Glory. And again, it should be pointed out that the film does not portray Jack as a miracle worker, though Jack does watch The Miracle Worker on television at one point. The progress is slow but, the film says, it is progress and that’s the important thing. Jack also develops an attraction to Glory’s brother, Robert (Israel Broussard). Robert, however, is the only member of the family to suspect that Jack may not be telling the truth about who she is…

Because Jack of the Red Hearts was on the Lifetime Movie Network, I kept waiting for the scene in which Jack would either seduce Kay’s husband or try to kidnap Glory. Thankfully, that scene never came, though the film still has its share of melodramatic moments. Jack of the Red Hearts is, in many ways, a predictable film but it’s also an achingly sincere film and Robb, Broussard, Janssen, and especially Taylor Richardson all give excellent and empathetic performances.

This is a sweetly well-intentioned and bravely unsentimental film and definitely one to keep an eye out for.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #125: Perfect High (dir by Vanessa Parise)

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the first post-Deadly Adoption Lifetime movie, Perfect High!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime and it was about a dancer, of course!

What Was It About?

Amanda (Bella Thorne) is a suburban teen who loves to dance. But, after an injury, she gets hooked on prescription pills. She also becomes best friends with druggie Riley (Daniela Bobadilla), Riley’s boyfriend Nate (Ross Butler), and Carson (Israel Broussard). Soon, Carson and Amanda are dating and they become perhaps the most boring couple in history. Of course, since this is Lifetime, the prescription drug abuse quickly leads to heroin, death, and a minute-long rehab scene.

What Worked?

The film did a good job of capturing both the excitement of dancing and the sheer terror of being injured and knowing that, as a result, you can’t do what you love.

What Did Not Work?

The whole movie was just so predictable and so slow. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that a Lifetime film about teenagers using drugs isn’t going to exactly be unpredictable. From the start of the film, I knew that one of the four friends was going to have to die and I easily guessed which one it was going to be. That’s just the way it works, somebody always has to die in these films.

But the problem is that we are now living in a post-Deadly Adoption age. After seeing every single Lifetime convention skewered last week, it’s hard to go back to taking any of those conventions seriously. The whole time I was watching the film, I kept expecting Will Ferrell to suddenly show and start bellowing, “SHE NEEDS HER MEDICINE!”

As well, Perfect High moved way too slowly for its own good. As characters, Amanda, Riley, Nate, and Carson all fell flat. Even before they ended up as drug addicts, they seemed like they wouldn’t be that interesting of a group to hang out with. Before doing drugs, they spent all their time laying on the couch. After doing drugs … well, that couch became even more comfortable. For an anti-drug film to really work, you have to mourn what the character could have been if not for their addictions. But, in Perfect High, everyone seemed to be just as dull regardless of whether they were high or not.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

The movie was about a red-haired dancer who popped too many pills in high school. Oh my God, just like me!

Lessons Learned

Stay away from that heroin, kids. Of course, I already knew that. Even when I was going through my phase where I wanted to experiment with and try everything, I still knew better than to ever use heroin. (Actually, to be honest, I should say that if I had ever had the opportunity to try heroin, I would have politely declined. Fortunately, I never even had to deal with being offered heroin, which I guess is the benefit of going to both a high school and a college where everyone was too busy smoking weed to worry about harder drugs.) Whenever I see a movie like Perfect High, I always wonder how the characters involved have never seen any other movies about heroin abuse.

I mean, don’t they watch Lifetime!?

Back to School #76: The Bling Ring (dir by Sofia Coppola)

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Bling Ring was one of the more divisive films of 2013. As often seems to happen with the work of Sofia Coppola, viewers either loved it as a stylish look at America’s self-destructive love affair with fame or else they felt that it was a shallow celebration of the very lifestyle that it claimed to be satirizing. Personally, I felt it was both, which is one reason why I enjoyed The Bling Ring.

The Bling Ring is based on the true story of a bunch of California teenagers who made headlines by breaking into the mansions of their idols. Over the course of several months, they burglarized everyone from Paris Hilton to Lindsay Lohan to Orlando Bloom. While they may have been smart enough to use social media to discover when their targets would be out of town, they weren’t smart enough to not use social media to brag about their crimes. Eventually, they were arrested and, for a brief period of time, they were as famous as the people they robbed. One of them even got her own reality show out of the whole thing. I watched an episode or two. It wasn’t very good.

Though the names have been changed, Coppola pretty much tells the story as it happened. New kid in school Marc (Israel Broussard) meets Rebecca (Kate Chang), who is obsessed with celebrities. Rebecca is also something of an obsessive thief and soon, she and Marc are breaking into the houses of their rich neighbors and acquaintances, stealing money, and going on shopping sprees. Their thievery allows them to leave a lifestyle where every day is just another makeover montage from a romantic comedy. Eventually, they are joined by Nicki (Emma Watson), Sam (Taissa Farmiga), and Chloe (Claire Julien).

One thing that quickly becomes clear is that the members of the Bling Ring are not exactly the smartest group of thieves around. Along with getting increasingly reckless while committing their crimes, they also make the mistake of showing off stolen jewelry at parties and posting pictures of Facebook. When the police eventually do track them down, Marc is a convenient scapegoat, Rebecca is hiding out in Las Vegas with her father, and Nicki becomes a minor celebrity as she and her mother exploit her newfound notoriety for all the publicity that they can get.

I liked The Bling Ring. It’s stylish, all of the actors look good and they’re all wearing beautiful outfits, and I loved seeing all of the houses that they broke into. (Some of the film was shot in the actual residences that were burglarized.) On the one hand, it doesn’t really dig too deeply into the nature of fame in America but, on the other hand, does it really need to? We all know the culture that we live in and, at its best, The Bling Ring forces us to ask whether we would rather be one of the people on the outside looking in or if we would want to be one of the people who broke in by any means necessary.

Add to that, it has a great soundtrack!

(Now, as I said, not everyone agrees with me about The Bling Ring. For an opposite reaction to The Bling Ring, check out Ryan The Trash Film Guru’s review.)