Time loop movies are not new. TimeCrimes and Triangle are some wonderful examples but everyone remembers one film in particular when encountering a time loop film. Groundhog Day. In fact, the term “Groundhog Day” has replaced “deja vu” in the vernacular to represent that someone has that odd feeling they have gone through something before.
Put a slasher movie in the blender with a time loop and you get Happy Death Day.
I always remember “deja vu” experience in relation to film. Back in the day when theaters would just keep showing the same film all day, people would randomly leave and arrive at different times during the showing, often saying “This is where I came in” to the rest of their party when noticing that certain sense kick in that you have seen it all before.
Today, so many films give you that sense. “This is just a remake of…”, “This is a remake of…” and so on until nothing seems new again. Take this film for instance. The concept is “Groundhog Day” meets “Scream.” From the start, you feel like you know what is going to happen.
Our main character, Tree, starts off as a major league shrew. She’s diddling a married professor. Hurts hapless men she’s dated for thrills. She gets blackout drunk with some regularity. She is entitled, emboldened and an egotist. She avoids her loving father and worst of all, she avoids carbs. She takes no notice of others outside of their role as an obstacle to whatever petty goal she has at that very moment. She is a nightmare!
But we’ve seen this movie before. It’s Groundhog Day. Tree is a prick, so she has to become a better person. Heck, her name, improbably, is TREE. She needs to GROW.
On track 2, we have the “Scream” analog which had a mystery behind the simply “Ghostface” mask that instantly felt like “I’ve seen that mask somewhere before.” In this film, the mask is based on a baby sports mascot…and a baby masked killer was done so recently as 2009’s The Hills Run Red. The instant you see the mask you think, “this is oddly familiar.”
These divergent tracks only work because of two specific people involved.
The first, and obvious choice, is Jessica Rothe as Bill Murray, er, I mean, Tree Gelbman. Jessica’s performance, even when she is playing the jerk, somehow draws you to her character. Now, it doesn’t hurt that she is absolutely gorgeous, but there is something dancing behind her eyes that brings her to life, even during the portion of the movie where she is a husk of a human being. She is funny and energetic throughout and carries the film firmly on her back.
The second of the two people is Christopher Landon, the director of Freaky, which we’ve reviewed recently on this column as well. He has demonstrated that he really knows how to balance horror and comedy to make entertaining films. The story bobs along at a healthy clip and moves so quickly you practically don’t notice that it is a little like listening to a record skipping.
But it is skipping on the right song. And you love the tune it is playing. Lots of other people thought so, too. This $5 million budget film made an enormous $128 million at the box office. It was yet another tremendous success for Blumhouse.
When I saw this movie originally in the theater, I had zero expectations. I liked the trailer and got the idea, but I knew the chances of the movie being any good were long at best. But the movie won me over. Now, having rewatched it, my expectations were set high, having remembered that I loved it. And it still did not disappoint.
Then again, it felt a little like a movie I saw before.