Happy Death Day 2 U

Director- Christopher Landon

Cast- Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard

Country of Origin- U.S.
 

Distributor - Universal

Number of discs –  2

Reviewed by - Scott MacDonald

Date- 06/26/2019

     Happy Death 2 U opens on Ryan a science student at Bayfield University who is working on temporal experiments. During one of these he is killed by the babyface killer of the original Happy Death Day, and sent back in time to relieve his death again.  This is when he runs into his roommate's girlfriend Tree. She survived the prior death day, and feels like she knows how to help save Ryan.  As it turns out, her involvement with Ryan causes his experiment to send her to the same place, but another dimension, where she has to go through another cycle of Death Day's in order to save her own life. Unfortunately for Tree this time her multiple deaths are wearing her out, and may eventually cause her to die for real.

    I'll start off by admitting I still have not seen Happy Death Day.  However, the trailers for Happy Death 2 U I had seen theatrically enticed me to see this one. Happy Death 2 U is both accessible for new audiences not familiar with the first, but at the same time it offers a lot of call backs to the original film, by wrapping it up in a time travel plot that engages with elements of the first.  

    Happy Death 2 U is a reasonably fun horror ride (quote material there people). I didn't expect much from the film, but was rewarded with an entertaining movie experience. I find a lot of genre films coming out in the mainstream to be counter to what I like about the genre, but Happy Death 2 U has the feel of a college set 80's slasher film (think Final Exam) with a time travel plot, and an excellent sense of humor that makes it easy to recommend.

    Universal presents Happy Death Day 2U in a 2:39:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the film.  Everything here looks quite excellent, colors pop, detail is excellent, and I see no apparent issues. Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in English, that sounds excellent with no obvious issues. Extras include some minor featurettes with a gag reel and deleted scenes.  RECOMMENDED.