Blumhouse (Insidious trilogy, Split and Get Out) 
produces this original and ingenious rewinding thriller called “Happy Death Day”, were a sorority girl heroine (Jessica Rothe) Tree is trapped in a morbid version of “Groundhog Day”. The restart scene in the film plays like a save point in a video game, she wakes up in a stranger’s dorm room bed, irritatedly warns the guy (Israel Broussard) “not a word of this to anyone,” takes off, in last night’s clothes, back to her sorority house, where she’s interrogated by frenemy Danielle (Rachel Matthews), not about if she’s okay, but about whether the guy she was with was of worth it.
She is at least by the policy of the genre so memorably made clear in “Scream” and dissected in “The Cabin in the Woods” fated to die. After being killed by a baby-masked attacker on her birthday, she wakes up to relive her murder with both anonymous and frightening end until she uncovers the truth. “Happy Death Day” is directed by Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) and written by Scott Lobdell and Landon.
What would you do? It’s a scary and interesting predicament. “Happy Death Day” focuses less on the horror aspect and more toward teens with a comedic undertone, giving it a CW-esque draw to questions of fate or destiny. Instead of preparing for a face off, setting a trap or taking a different route, Tree uses her lives to check off potential suspects, to the tune of pop music, creepily stalking people. But along the way she becomes a better person.
Director Christopher Landon and screenwriter and comics veteran Scott Lobdell maintain modest tension and humor as they deliver tried and true genre standbys like loud music jump scares, an unnaturally deserted hospital and red-herring suspects. Rothe is brilliant with both the horror and the comedic tone as she engages us through her troubles and the final resolution is satisfyingly clever, definitely one of my favorite Horror/comedies.
Rated PG-13 for violence/terror, crude sexual content, language, some drug material and partial nudity
this one does push the rating, the partial nudity regards a woman’s backside IMDB has a very in-depth description
I give it a B+
