Happy Death Day 2U finds entertainment in self-referential franchise construction

As films become more and more franchised, it is inevitable that more sequels, spinoffs and tributes will require more knowledge about other films – not only for the enjoyment of viewers, but also for their understanding. Watch the biggest film franchise in the world: nothing about Avengers: war in the infiniteFrom the seriousness of its stakes to comic relief that breaks the tension, makes sense for people who have not seen at least three or four other Marvel films. (If it is not the case, 10 or 15). bad fans can find this interconnectivity extremely satisfying. People who just love watching movies might find it very difficult to keep up with these series, using support services and multi-movie arcs so the audience does not come back. room.

The new horror suite Good death 2U is a much smaller project than the MCU, but it does not reverse the trend of the franchise. The sequel to Blumhouse's 2017 thriller Happy feast of death (basically a slasher marmot day) pauses for the first half hour to recap the original movie for the uninitiated viewers, but this is not his first priority. Instead, screenwriter-director Christopher Landon immediately makes a wink to the conventions of time-lapse movies through an opening sequence that follows Ryan (Phi Vu), a secondary character in the first film, who wakes up in his car and goes to his university campus.

Before it's officially clear that Ryan is about to start his own time loop, Landon stages the stage to maximize all those not-so-small details that the audience for these movies is supposed to remember in the next round character; Landon is laughing, throwing some obvious obstacles on Ryan's path: a dog grumbling here, a guy coming out of the bushes.

Specifically, he mocks members of the public who know and love Happy feast of death. In this film, Theresa "Tree" Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), an insensitive girl, lives her unhappy birthday again and again, being murdered several times until she can catch her own murderer and get out of the bleeding cycle (and learn to be a better person, marmot day-style). The tree stays in the center of 2U; Ryan lives with Carter (Israel Broussard), the boy that Tree grew up in love during the first film, and Ryan's misadventure in time is a kind of fake. During the second day of his day in which he is murdered before starting again, he meets Tree and Carter. They are quick to believe his incredible situation after defeating him. But a hasty attempt to solve his problem brings Tree back into his birthday loop, with variations not to spoil.

It means that everything Happy feast of death was a horror movie about a student stuck in a time loop, the sequel is really about a student stuck in Happy feast of death. An obvious point of reference is self-referencing Back to the future, part II, especially obvious because the characters directly discuss how their story looks like this movie. For punctuation, the musical score imitates even the trademark of Alan Silvestri from this series of Robert Zemeckis. Tree, for its part, did not see Back to the future, part IIto the chagrin of her nerdy friends, and she's "so much on that shit," as she says when she wakes up for the umpteenth time in the same dorm bed. A masked killer still pursues her, her new boyfriend has no memory of their early days together and she weakens with each new reproduction, even when she takes things in hand in a macabre montage and ridiculous. Tree has learned to be a better person, but she has not quite grown up yet.

Photo: Universal Pictures

A sequel that revisits so directly and so often the events of his predecessor sounds like a frenetic exercise of indulgence towards oneself. Back to the future, part II was received in certain corners in 1989. Thirty years later, his reputation has improved a lot and it is commendable to underline how Happy Day Day 2U looks like him. The first Happy feast of death was not particularly scary, but it was smart, well paced and often funny. Apparently emboldened by his success, Landon moves away from his original genre, even though he intentionally escapes the old. In a certain way, a sequel to slasher, this humble art form, becomes both sci-fi, romantic drama, horror film and wacky comedy on campus.

Although Landon is responsible for the film's ambition, he is not the only one responsible for his success. His performance is sometimes slightly behind his invention, because he creates scenes that could use a more delicate hand with dialogue – or better still, with silence. Jessica Rothe is one of the main reasons the film survives these difficult times, and her many hair turns turn into different genres. It can imbue an irritated glow of determination, pain and comic effect at a time. Although she was funny as a naughty sorority girl (and she's still funny as a heroic hero), she deepens this performance with unexpected scenes of emotion. She is literally and literally struggling with mortality and she is good at both.

Good death 2U has its status as a result; Based on a medium credit scene, Landon could even aspire to make it a real saga of the franchise. However, its loop self-referential quality is both thematically appropriate and competently performed. Another recent theatrical release, Todd Strauss-Schulson's rom-com comedy Is not it romantic?, is almost as referential (to romantic comedies in general, rather than the story of a predecessor in particular), and not so funny – or all the more so moving, in a sneaky way. Good death 2U pulls something that is not particularly easy for original movies, let alone direct hits: it makes all the hard work of building the world and narration fun.