Happy Death Day (2017)

Rating: ***
Review Date: 4/18/21
Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard

A college girl named Tree (Jessica Rothe) finds herself trapped in a time loop where she keeps reliving the same day and getting murdered by a maniac wearing a baby face mask. She gets weaker with each iteration and needs to figure out who keeps killing her so that she can break the cycle. It's a taut slasher thriller full of twists and turns that keep you guessing up until the end. It looks good and is well made, but the characters are deplorable and make your skill crawl. Jessica Rothe gives an excellent performance as a hard-partying sorority girl who's a mean and nasty bitch. For the entire first half of the film, you despise her and everyone else in the story, but she eventually realizes what a horrible person she is and slowly becomes a more sympathetic and emotionally complex character. No reason is given for her time looping situation, which is explored more fully in the sequel.