Those who follow my reviews know that one of my biggest pet peeves about modern horror is the weird lack of likable characters. It seems to have started around the time Rob Zombie and Eli Roth began their film careers, though I do like some of their stuff, to be sure.
However, it seems like the filmmakers that have come up in their wake have chosen to follow some of their worst tendencies, rather than what makes them unique, such as the sometimes colorful (House of 1000 Corpses, Lords of Salem), sometimes gritty (The Devil's Rejects) look of Zombie's flicks, or the warped plot-lines of Roth at his best (the Hostel movies).
Instead, they've sought to emulate the crass characterization and juvenile sense of humor, easily the worst elements of any given film in those particular filmmakers' given canons, the grizzled charms of Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding notwithstanding. ("Tutti-fuckin'-fruity!" 😃)
Believe it or not, my younger readers, there was a time in which even the assholes, bitches, muscle-bound jocks and slutty ladies were a lot of fun, and even, yes, kinda likable. Rather than rooting for their deaths, you were sad to see them go, as the last one(s) standing were almost always the wet blankets of the bunch, as admirable as their resilience might have been.
With the films Wish Upon and Happy Death Day, we see some perfect examples of what I mean, but only one of them truly points a clever way forward. (If you've seen them, you probably already know the answer to that one.) Let's take a closer look.
Wish Upon revolves around a teenage girl, Clare (Joey King, of The Conjuring and TV's Fargo), whose father (Ryan Phillipe, of I Know What You Did Last Summer, quite literally slumming it) gifts her with an antique he found while rummaging through garbage for something worth salvaging.
I would comment on how dubious it is for an evil artifact to have been found beneath an freaky-looking statue, or the very fact that said statue would be erected in the first place anywhere, but I used to live down the street from precisely such a dubious statue, and it was in front of a church, no less! So... yeah, it happens, even if the statues don't tend to come with an accompanying evil wishing box.
Anyway, Clare, in a moment of despair, after translating one of the Chinese characters on the box to mean "seven wishes," compulsively makes a wish for local mean girl Darcie (Josephine Langford, of the TV series Wolf Creek) to "rot," which seems an odd thing to wish for, but okay.
Needless to say, Darcie quite literally does, thanks to a flesh-eating virus, not unlike the one in the aforementioned Eli Roth's debut feature Cabin Fever. And so it goes, with each successive wish Clare makes resulting in popularity, money, et al.- but all at the expense of others, typically of the deadly variety.
Now, while it's feasible that Clare might be able to chalk up these mysterious occurrences to mere happenstance early on, it becomes readily apparent after a point that she knows the potential consequences and continues to make the wishes anyway, which is kind of a problem, as it makes it harder and harder for the viewer to sympathize.
The thing is, under normal circumstances, King is thoroughly likable and sweet, but here, the nature of the character itself makes it well-nigh-impossible to root for her. Most everyone else in the film isn't much better, including Clare's friends, who are all pretty nasty and self-serving their own damn selves, just as much as the so-called "mean girls" elsewhere in the movie.
Once again, this is through no fault of the actresses. Under normal circumstances, I love Shannon Purser, of Stranger Things (Barb!) and Riverdale fame, and Sydney Park is pretty adorable in her typical Nickelodeon/Disney girl stuff and nothing if not sympathetic in her tricky turn on The Walking Dead.
That means the chief problem here is, you guessed it, the writing. Once again, a screenwriter has mistaken stereotypes for character, only allowing each of them a few key characteristics (if that) and not much else, and it's a big problem.
However, I will give the movie one prop: it features the rare Asian co-lead in Ki Hong Lee (of The Maze Runner series and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), who manages to cast aside his limited character bonds and be genuinely cool and yes, even likable.
Semi-props, too for resisting the urge to make his aunt Gina (Alice Lee, of Faking It and Switched at Birth) a crusty old wizened crone, though I'm not entirely sure making her a total hottie is much better, really.
Given that the film sets things up (pseudo-spoiler alert!) to make Lee's character, Ryan, the lead of a potential follow-up, it's hard to complain about that aspect of the film. I just wish that he gets a better movie. (See what I did there?)
As for this one, it's serviceable, I guess, even if it completely wastes the talented cast, which also includes former Twin Peaks siren Sherilyn Fenn, the normally great Elisabeth Röhm (Law & Order, American Hustle) and even, God help us all, Jerry O'Connell (Scream 2, Stand by Me). You see what you've done, Wish Upon? You've made me feel sorry for freaking Jerry O'Connell!
Watch it if there's nothing else on, I guess, but honestly, you're better off binge-ing the Hellraiser series- or even having a Wishmaster marathon, which is not something I even thought I'd say, ever. For shame, Wish Upon.
Then there's Happy Death Day. At first, I thought it was going to be more of the same, given how awful and self-centered the lead is here. As played by Jessica Rothe (of La La Land and Mary + Jane, neither of which I've seen)- who intially comes off like a cross between the worst tendencies of Blake Lively and Rachel McAdams- Theresa "Tree" Gelbman is thoroughly unlikable from the jump- literally, as she wakes up in someone's dorm and wastes no time in being a total bitch on wheels.
But this time, there's a method to the madness. As Tree discovers the hard way, she's doomed to relive the same day over and over again, Groundhog Day-style, until she figures out what's going on and how to stop it. That means, in this case, she has to die again and again, in all manners of horrific ways, until she gets it "right."
Now, in this era of horror movies, I wouldn't have been shocked if she didn't learn jack from her experiences, but the movie surprised me. Instead, first she learns how to improve her behavior to make the most of things, then how to treat people with genuine respect, no matter what their social status; and eventually, she comes to terms with why she is the way she is- and it turns out, it's not without good reason.
That's just plain good writing there, and it's frankly remarkable that HDD manages to have its birthday cake and eat it too- or birthday cupcake, in this case. With each modern horror movie I watch, I typically have to steel myself to get through it, as they are all-too-often filled with terrible characters.
With this one, you see the writer (Scott Lobdell, a former comics writer, who deserves a shout-out for his fine work here) gleefully working his way through all the clichés and stereotypes and coming up with a winner. It's like the first post-modern modern horror film, and I genuinely hope other would-be horror writers are taking notes. THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT, PEOPLE!
While, yes, there are indeed some one-note characters here and there, i.e. the resident mean girl, the horny professor; but by and large, this is a film that is obviously looking to flip the genre on its head, and in that, it wildly succeeds. It's fun, unpredictable and engaging, once it hits its stride, which doesn't take long. It also has some genuinely surprising twists I didn't see coming, and an amusing end scene.
In short, Happy Death Day gets a lot right. Sometimes, I guess, you have to think outside the box to get out of the box in the first place. Like I said, horror writers, pay close attention- it is indeed still possible to write characters that are modern without making them annoying. This great flick proves it. (Yep, I'm as stunned as you are.)
By all means, check it out! 💀👻👼/😈😜
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