Death comes to us all—sometimes in a big, goofy baby mask and a hoodie, again and again again
Happy Death Day 2U
Starring Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard & Phi Vu
Directed by Christopher Landon
PG-13
So you think you’re stuck in a same-old, same-old kind of rut?
Consider the Sisyphean circumstances of Theresa “Tree” Gelbman, a young coed who not only can’t seem to get out of college, but who keeps dying—murdered, to be exact—on her birthday, over and over and over again.
Bum-mer.
That was the premise of Happy Death Day, a modest little horror hit in 2017. In that movie, Tree kept waking up on her birthday anew, reliving its experiences Groundhog Day-style, each day capped by another unfortunate encounter with the Grim Reaper. This was her fate, repeatedly, until she figured out who was behind her murder(s), and why, and how she could finally break the sequence.
It was a taut, wickedly engaging funhouse puzzle with a unique twist on the time-honored genre of “attractive young women in peril.”
And we know that Hollywood can’t let a good thing just slip away.
In this frightfully fun, cheekily self-aware sequel, when one of her campus mates, Ryan (Phi Vu), has a freak-out deja-vu “death” experience, Tree (Jessica Rothe, reprising her role) knows exactly what’s happening—her birthday curse has somehow returned. And it’s spread to other people now. The killer again wears the creepy, snaggle-toothed, big-baby mascot mask of their university, which makes it easy for him (or her) to hide, disguised, in plain sight.
Jessica Rothe with Israel Broussard—and a quantum time machine
Tree discovers that the cause of all the trouble is a quantum time machine, a thesis project built by Ryan and some of his fellow science-nerd students. (Ah, those meddling scientists!) The Big Bang Theory-ish doohickey is a cooling reactor that slows down time on a molecular level and allows multiple dimensions to overlap and interloop.
That “explains” why people keep getting killed over and over again—they’re stuck in a multi-dimensional loop. “Do I look like I know what a multi-dimension is?!” asks an exasperated Tree, when one of the science students attempts to enlighten her.
Eventually Tree gets stuck in the loop again, too, and has to work with Ryan to find a way to stop the killer, close the loop and end the die-wake-repeat cycle—and tie up a couple of other loose ends with her family, her boyfriend (Israel Broussard) and her sorority pal (Ruby Modine).
Director Christopher Landon, who also returns to the job, stirs a brisk streak of send-up humor, and outright comedy, into the killer mix—this isn’t a bloody slasher film, by any stretch. It’s more Scooby Doo than Scream, and it’s also got a potent undercurrent of real emotion, as Tree has to make some hard decisions and choices about her past, present and future. “Every day is a chance to be someone better,” she says.
Death can be a drag, but when it’s an everyday thing, you might as well get some laughs out of it, right? In in one darkly whimsical montage sequence, Tree takes matters into her own hands, causing her own demise in several creative ways to explore various loops—seeking the “right” one to close—without having to wait to be murdered.
Look her up on IMDB and you’ll see that the actress who plays Tree was one of the roommates of Emma Stone’s character in the Oscar-sweeping La La Land. They all sang and danced together in the big go-out-on-the-town number, “Someone in the Crowd.”
That’s the way it is in Hollywood, and in life. One day you’re singing and dancing and painting the town, the next you’re gleefully diving headfirst into a wood chipper or getting chased off the top of skyscraper, plunging to the pavement below.
As Happy Death Day 2U impishly reminds us, life is rich and rewarding, but death comes to us all—and if you’re Tree Gelbman, it just keeps coming, in a big, goofy baby mask, with a big, shiny knife, again and again and again.
In theaters Friday, Feb. 15, 2019
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