Back in my younger days, I found myself in one of those unexpected, love-at-first-sight romances, the kind that catches fire in an instant but inevitably burns out.
Months later, overcome with nostalgia and craving that familiar rush, I decided to give it another go. I tried to do everything that worked so well the first go-round, while introducing new adventures I thought might take us to the next level. And it was good, really good, for a while, right up to that moment when it all spectacularly fell apart.
Happy Death Day 2U is exactly like that singular sensation that only comes with second-chance, make-up love.
It’s a film powered by the foolish belief that the best intentions will always carry the day, if only because it has just enough moments that make you laugh and feel that same warm bond you first forged with its extremely likeable characters when the original Happy Death Day debuted in 2017.
I know I’m not alone in my deep appreciation for the original, which introduced Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) to the worst day of her life, a recurring Groundhog Day nightmare that saw her die again and again, even as she learned how to become a better human and also fell in love with an unlikely boy, Carter (Israel Broussard).
Tree and Carter are back in Happy Death Day 2U, along with Carter’s clueless roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu); Tree’s vain sorority president Danielle (Rachel Matthews); and almost all of the main supporting cast from the first film — even the ones who died.
Some characters, like Ryan, now have a much larger role to play. It turns out that Ryan is a quantum physics whiz-kid, and that he helped create what’s basically a time machine that allows people to move between alternate dimensions.
Ryan’s invention might help explain some of the nagging questions raised in Happy Death Day, such as the rolling blackouts that plagued the campus of fictional Bayfield University, but it also creates its share of new issues that never get resolved.
In trying not to simply re-do the first film, returning writer-director Christopher Landon has flipped the script, for better in some places but definitely for worse overall. Whereas Happy Death Day was the equivalent of a John Hughes coming-of-age movie masquerading as a slasher film, Happy Death Day 2U is basically My Science Project masquerading as a sequel to a slasher film.
The science-fiction-heavy plot feels undercooked, and there are way too many inconsistencies with the time-travel rules that are established, which means the sequel is enjoyable solely because of the actors involved, particularly Rothe, but also Matthews, whose wonderfully bitchy delivery elevates one-off quips like, “I’m auditioning for this season’s revival of The Miracle Worker. Did you know Anne Frank was blind and deaf?”
While I personally admire Landon’s ambition in taking his fledgling franchise in a wholly unexpected direction, and while it’s fun at first to see the subtle differences in character traits that the time travel gimmick reveals, Happy Death Day 2U leaves you feeling as nostalgic for the simple charms of its predecessor as I felt way back when for the girl I let slip away.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at bloodviolenceandbabes.com, on Facebook or on Twitter.
This article appears in Feb 14-21, 2019.