Director: Christopher B. Landon
Screenplay: Scott Lobdell
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine
Running Time: 107 minutes
Genre: Horror, comedy, slasher
Obnoxious college student Tree (Rothe) wakes up on the morning of her birthday in a stranger's dorm room. She goes through the rest of a pretty miserable day, being as horrible as possible to everyone around her. Until the evening when she is murdered by a masked killer. However, Tree wakes up in the stranger's dorm room, and soon realises that she is being forced to relive the day of her murder, over and over again, until she can stop the killer, and survive the day. And you thought your birthdays were bad!
The obvious comparisons to make are with the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day (which has the same concept of a person being forced to relive the same day over and over again - and which is namechecked in the film) and with the 1996 film Scream (with which it shares a similar sense of humour). The film starts slowly and it takes some time to really get into it, but once it gets there it is funny and exciting. Jessica Rothe gives a fantastic performance in a difficult central role. She plays a very unlikeable character, but gives her enough depth, so that the audience goes along with her through her journey. There are elements in the film which are introduced but not really followed through on, such as her relationship with her father and what happened to her mother. Some horror fans may be disappointed because it is neither particularly scary or particularly gruesome, but there are plenty of shocks and an intriguing mystery. The film does a good job of building and maintaining the mystery, and the scenes were Tree conducts her investigations are very funny. The killer's creepy baby mask is memorable, and it's a good film for people who may enjoy the odd scary movie, but are not big horror fans.
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