Happy Death Day is the strangest movie I’ve ever cried at – and I fully expect to be in the minority when I say that I cried at both Happy Death Day films. I can’t say that I expected to have that reaction to them; they’re fun, silly slasher flicks made for a good time, not a long time. But I honestly think they’re more than that. They’re more than they seem because of the emotional core that drives them – and that isn’t something we should just breeze by.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Happy Death Day movies, then let me catch you up real quick – spoilers from here on in! University student Tree Gelbman (short for Teresa, her parents aren’t insane) wakes up on the morning of her birthday. We follow her throughout the day as we soon realise that she isn’t all that nice, but things take a turn when she’s suddenly murdered on her way to a party. Then she wakes up. And is murdered again. Then she wakes up. You with me? It’s basically Scream meets Groundhog Day, and it’s more than fun enough to get by. It made a bucketload of money from a tiny budget, so a sequel hit cinemas last year (I feel like I should definitely mention its amazing title of Happy Death Day 2U). This one forgoes the horror genre entirely to become a sci-fi comedy that finds Tree stuck in a time loop yet again – but this time she’s also stuck in an alternate dimension.
You might be starting to understand why it’s so strange that both of these movies made me cry. And I’d be tempted to agree with you! But there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned that resonates with me on a deeply personal level: three years before the first movie takes place, Tree’s mother passed away. She closed herself off and never dealt with it properly, but the events of the film force her to come to terms with it; the fact that the two shared a birthday makes the day even more difficult for her. In the sequel, we learn that in this alternate dimension her mother is still alive, and Tree is faced with a choice: stay in this dimension and be with her mother, or return home and carry on her life without her. It’s for these reasons that I see a lot of myself in Tree.
"One of my favourite things about these movies is how simple Tree’s internal conflict is"
My mother died when I was seven. She’d been sick with cancer for a long time, but it was still a shock when my brother and I got home from school one day to the news. My dad sat us down and told us straight up – I’ll always appreciate his honesty that day. Ten years later I had a really bad mental health crash and realised I’d never properly dealt with her death, so I made efforts to fix that. Five years after that, I feel confident in saying I’ve now fully come to terms with losing her. I’ll never be okay with it, but I’ve accepted it: this loss is now part of my identity as a person.
But back to Happy Death Day. One of my favourite things about these movies is how simple Tree’s internal conflict is in both films: she’s faced with a personal, emotional journey that she must successfully embark on in order to save herself. It’s simple, sure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be powerful.
The emotional dilemma surrounding Tree’s mother is laid out in one scene in each movie, both taking place at the restaurant where she’s meeting her parents for a birthday lunch (if you want, you can check them out here and here). In the first movie, part of Tree’s journey to becoming a good person involves connecting with her father, which she’s struggled to do since her mother’s death. She sits with him and pours her heart out, explaining that she’s sorry for being distant and that she’s going to change that. This almost exactly mirrors a conversation I had with my dad not too long ago – watching this scene made me realise that I’d been doing the same thing as Tree. I’d closed myself off from my dad because I didn’t know what else to do, but in the process I’d only hurt both of us. As odd as it may seem to say it, Happy Death Day encouraged me to fix the relationship that I’d sabotaged – and because of that, I’ll be eternally grateful to this dumb horror movie.
The sequel hit home in a slightly different way. As I’ve already mentioned, Tree’s mother is alive in this alternate dimension, and she is forced to choose between her mother and her future back home. This is a style of plot point that always gets to me, no matter where it shows up: I still can’t watch this scene from the season one finale of The Flash (a show I haven’t watched in years) without breaking down because it feels so real. The same applies to Happy Death Day 2U, and I can’t lie, I’d give anything for the opportunity to say goodbye to my mum as Tree does.
"I never got to say goodbye to my mum. I also never got to tell her how much I loved her"
I never got to say goodbye to my mum. I also never got to tell her how much I loved her, or that I’d miss her every day she wasn’t around, or that I’d randomly break down in tears because she’d gone and I couldn’t understand why it had to be her. Those opportunities were taken from me when I was too young to properly understand them, but I was able to live them through this scene.
The exchange is gorgeously acted by Jessica Rothe and Missy Yager, who beautifully bring Christopher Landon’s dialogue to life, and Bear McCreary’s synth-heavy score works absolute wonders as it builds to the scene’s conclusion. It’s a scene that comes out of absolutely nowhere in an otherwise very light and enjoyable movie to utterly devastate me with a knockout blow to my heart. But because of it, I felt like I’d finally been able to say goodbye to my mum.
"We need to take our pain and carry it forward with us, and if we don’t come to terms with it then we’ll never truly be free"
Tree’s journey in the sequel also taught me an important life lesson: you can’t live in the past. She makes the heart-wrenching decision to return home and carry on with her own life, and that was something I desperately needed to hear. We need to take our pain and carry it forward with us, and if we don’t come to terms with it then we’ll never truly be free. I know that I’ll always miss my mum, but I think, were I in Tree’s position, I’d ultimately have made the same choice. All the hurt that I’ve felt since she was taken is part of me now: I am the man I am today because I’ve spent every thinking moment doing what I thought would have made my mum proud of me. I really hope she would be.
Thank you for sticking with me this far. I didn’t expect things to get quite so heavy in my first proper post, but there we go. I’ll try and make things a little lighter next time, I promise!
And thank you, too, to Christopher Landon: your movies helped me in ways I never expected them to, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart.
Images: Toby Oliver/Blumhouse Productions/Universal Pictures