What I Say 2U

Earlier this year, I wrote about the modest but pleasant surprise that was the horror film Happy Death Day. The "Groundhog Day meets slasher film" concept was well-executed and entertaining... and, evidently, successful enough at the box office to spawn a sequel, Happy Death Day 2U.

Picking up right where the first movie left off, a peripheral character from the first movie now finds himself stuck in a time loop of his repeated murder. But unlike Tree, the heroine of the first film, he knows why he's been caught in the loop. His attempts to escape it, however, only make matters worse. Soon the problem is far more complicated than one of time travel.

There are a lot of surprisingly clever ideas in the mix here. Simply transferring the "lethal Groundhog Day" premise of the original movie to a new character could have been enough on which to base a decent sequel. Yet while the movie does mine this premise pretty well for the first 15 or 20 minutes, it actually has an even better idea to present. Before you can even think to ask yourself whether this premise is really different enough from the first movie, the story twists in an entirely new direction.

It's also fun how this movie seeks to explain things that the first movie left mysterious. Happy Death Day, like Groundhog Day before it, never tells you how the time loop came to be, or why it's happening to this particular character. It's not important to the story being told. But this sequel needs to unearth new ideas, and so it effectively reverse engineers answers to these questions (and more).

This second film is also loaded with callbacks and references to the first; I have no doubt this movie plays better the more recently you've seen the original. All the original cast returns, as does the same director, composer, and more. It really is a fun companion piece.

All that said, the movie is a bit front-loaded with its smartest ideas, best scenes, and cleverest storytelling. As it marches into the third act, the tank starts to run a bit low on gas. The murder mystery at play this time isn't as exhilarating as the first film, and the "lesson" to be learned here doesn't resonate as poignantly.

I'd say Happy Death Day 2U peaks higher but finishes lower than the first film... but it probably averages out to about the same place. I gave the first movie a B, and that feels about right for the second one too. It's not quite as good, but it's close enough, and better than many sequels manage. If you liked one, you'll probably like them both.