Universal Pictures and director Christopher Landon are making a “killer comeback” this season with “Happy Death Day 2U,” a sequel to the October 2017 film that shattered box office expectations by earning an astonishing $122 million despite its meager $5 million-dollar budget. Frontrunner, Jessica Rothe, stars in this hair-rising déjà vu horror flick as Tree Gelbman, a college girl that’s killed and then forced to relive every painstaking moment of her death day on a loop until she unveils the identity of her baby masked murderer. No biggie, right?
The sequel picks up two years after the nail-biting conclusion of the previous installment, where the audience is under the impression that Tree has beaten death and lived to tell the torturous tale. Tree seems to be living the better version of her life. Unfortunately for our heroic protagonist, that assumption is very wrong because Tree has been thrown back into her time-loop nightmare, where she is awoken on her birthday in the dorm bedroom of her former one-night stand, Carter Davis, played by Israel Broussard (you may also know him as Josh from “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.) Unbeknownst to Tree, dying over and over was probably a whole lot easier than the murderous obstacles lying ahead in the sequel. Now, instead of just watching her own back, Tree must attempt to escape the murderous cycle while also protecting her friends who have become targets in the killer’s sick game—a whole knew level of whodunnit.
Many are probably asking, “why should I watch a film that is just a repeat the original?” This is a valid question, but earlier this year in an interview with Collider Rothe teased what audiences could expect from the sequel. “The sequel, the way [director Christopher Landon] described it to me, elevates the movie from being a horror movie – and I wouldn’t even say it’s just a horror movie because it’s a horror, comedy, rom-com drama – into a Back to the Future type of genre film where the sequel joins us right from where we left off, it explains a lot of things in the first one that didn’t get explained, and it elevates everything,” Rothe revealed. She continued, “I was really pleased to know that we weren’t just gonna be pushing all the buttons that people loved the first time, over and over again, ‘cause I think that gets old.” With that being said, the sequel is going to primarily focus on why Tree got thrown into the time loop in the first place and it will show the plotline of the first movie from a completely different perspective.
“Happy Death Day 2U” is set to premiere in theaters on February 13, 2019, but students at Florida State University get the chance to catch an advanced screening of it on Monday, January 28th. Students must request a free pass, available at the front desk of the Askew Student Life Cinema with an FSU ID, in order to reserve a spot in line. The SLC will begin banding at 6pm, doors open at 7pm and the screening will begin at 8pm, so students are advised to arrive early in order to snag a coveted seat! Additionally, there will be free merch and the first 100 people in line will win free popcorn.