With a budget of under $5 million and a domestic gross of $122+ million it was inevitable that Blumhouse and Universal would be jumping on this train and quickly pumping out a sequel to the surprise Halloween smash that was
Happy Death Day-which will have only debuted sixteen months prior by the time its sequel hits on Valentine’s Day this year. While the premise of
Happy Death Day was tried and true it had never really been attempted in the vein of a horror movie-or more specifically-a slasher movie before, but it made sense: in slasher movies a mysterious killer goes around killing this core group of teens we come to know in an order we can easily guess based on a combination of race, gender, and screentime, but instead of being a predictable, run of the mill slasher what if it was the same kill every time with our hero trying to figure out how they both got stuck in said loop and how they might escape it; it’s defeating the killer on a whole other level and while this premise doesn’t typically lend itself well to sequels, it can’t help but seem
Happy Death Day 2U (one of the greatest sequel titles of all time, I might add) is taking things to a whole other level with where this next film may in fact go next. Given the sequel’s plot picks up from
Happy Death Day's conclusion it almost feels like Christopher Landon’s film will reach for
Back to the Future 2 aspirations where not only does the second film become a satisfying continuation in executing the logical next step, but also goes about lending the events of the original more meaning at the same time. Landon, who directed the first film from a screenplay by Scott Lobdell, has penned the sequel screenplay on his own (though he's no rookie having written
Disturbia and several of the
Paranormal Activity sequels) and seems to have infused more of his comedic tendencies (see
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse if you haven't already) into the fabric of the film as star Jessica Rothe definitely seems to have more opportunities here to show her full comedic range as was hinted at in the first film while the film itself feels more like a horror/comedy than a straight-up scary movie.
Happy Death Day 2U also stars Israel Broussard, Suraj Sharma, and Sarah Yarkin and opens in theaters on February 14, 2019.
