Groundhog Day isn’t a horror movie but it very well could be. Reliving the same day because you’re stuck in a time loop (in wintery Pennsylvania, at that), unable to die, slowly going insane to the tune of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” — that sounds horrifying to me, although it could be worse: you could be stabbed to death by a killer in a baby mask, over and over again.
That’s the premise of Happy Death Day. The slasher film from Blumhouse Productions (the same production company behind recent hits Get Out, Split, and The Purge: Election Year) stars La La Land‘s Jessica Rothe as a college student who’s forced to relive her murder until she solves it. Christopher B. Landon and Scott Lobdell are well aware of the similarities to Groundhog Day (and to an extent, Edge of Tomorrow), and they pepper the script with references to the Bill Murray classic, including the main character waking up to a song (“In Da Club” by 50 Cent) and convincing someone she’s not crazy by “directing” her surroundings. Instead of Ned Ryerson, though, we get:
Unless that is Ned Ryerson. Oops, spoiler.
Happy Death Day — which is directed by Landon, who also wrote Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and every Paranormal Activity except the original and The Ghost Dimension — opens on Friday, October 13.
