Sunday, October 22, 2017

HAPPY DEATH DAY

I love horror movies. Over the past few years that love has been an oscolating wave, but overall I still admire the genre. During a slump I found myself seriously thinking about retiring from watching scary movies. My reasoning at the time was because of burn out and just not interested anymore. Then I started to watch some cult classics that I had never seen before; and voila, I fell in love again!

The movie that got me back into loving the fun of horror films was PEICES, a grindhouse cult classic from the early eighties. The film is popular for it's over-the-top slasher gore. Some scenes are pretty tasteless, but a horror fan should laugh a bit for how ridiculous PIECES gets!

This is a review of HAPPY DEATH DAY I promise, I only bring up PIECES because it's the film that reminded be that horror should be a fun genre. And HAPPY DEATH DAY is fun; unfortunately, I just was not the audience for it.

College student Tree, relives the day of her murder over and over again. With the help of a fellow student they decide that to end the loop, Tree find out who her killer is. Yes, it's GROUNDHOG DAY meets HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

In the beginning I was on board with HAPPY DEATH DAY! For starters, I loved the look of the movie. It has this '80's soft focus to it. I felt that I was watching a film from that decade. Next, Jessica Rothe was superb as Tree, our main character! She carried the film for me all the way to the end. As a fun bonus I loved spotting who the killer was (I watch too many of these things) as soon as they appeared on screen! It was during the montage of Tree getting killed over and over that I started to loose interest fast.

My biggest issue with HAPPY DEATH DAY is it's PG-13 rating. Now I'm not asking for the movie to be a gore-fest, but the film should meet expectations somewhere around the middle? And for those that are thinking "HAPPY DEATH DAY is a movie that doesn't need gore", I think it does? It's important for me to remember that HALLOWEEN (1978) had only a few specks of blood during it's entire runtime.

But HALLOWEEN, HAPPY DEATH DAY is not. Where HALLOWEEN relied on mood and atmosphere, HAPPY DEATH DAY is more rooted in the look and feel of a mid-eighties and post-SCREAM slasher film. While mostly butchered by the MPAA, the era of slashers that I'm referring to were still rooted in some nice splatter every now and then. Something that HAPPY DEATH DAY is lacking.

By the final act of the film it felt like I was watching a late '90's horror movie? Remember those? Where every horror movie poster was emo profile pictures of the cast. SCREAM knock-offs that were considered good because horror had been gone from the multi-plex theaters for so long that we didn't know any better? It wasn't until films like CABIN FEVER and HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES that made us realize that horror kinda sucked in the mid-nineties.

On a positive note the horror genre has been on the rise as of late. IT, GET OUT, SPLIT, GERALD'S GAME, and THE BABYSITTER are just a few titles that I think really hit home runs for the genre! And with the success of HAPPY DEATH DAY, maybe we'll see a resurgence of the slasher flick. As you know, horror in Hollywood always comes in waves, and it's about time for the slasher to return.

This year Halloween falls on a weeknight and next weekend is Season 2 of STRANGER THINGS. I doubt it but I will try my best to review the season as soon as I finish it. There may be some other treats I'll share this week!

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