Trailer Takeaways: HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U

HAPPY DEATH DAY was one of the most wonderful surprises of 2018: A clever and fun horror movie with a GROUNDHOG DAY twist from the people who brought us THE PURGE series and GET OUT.
It’s hard to imagine a sequel topping the twists and turns of the first film, but HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U looks like it’s going to do just that. The first trailer for the upcoming horror sequel reveals quite a bit about what we can expect, while teasing some even bigger – and crazier – twists. Here are the biggest takeaways from the trailer.
But First, A Recap!
In the first HAPPY DEATH DAY, Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up in the dorm room of a nice college classmate named Carter (Israel Broussard). Her memory is hazy, from partying the night before. It happens to be her birthday – something she’d prefer to ignore. On her way to a sorority party, she’s murdered by a psycho killer wearing a mask that looks like a giant baby face. But then she wakes up, and she’s back in Carter’s room.
It’s not long before Tree realizes that she’s doomed to repeat the same day over and over. Each time, it ends with her murder… unless Tree can figure out who keeps killing her. By the end of HAPPY DEATH DAY, Tree breaks out of the loop by killing her own murderer. (No spoilers about who that was, but as they always say, most murders are committed by someone the victim knows. Note that this new trailer does reveal the killer from the original film.)
“I’ve totally lived through this day already!”
The first trailer for HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U opens with Tree getting all cozy with Carter in his dorm room. Just like the first film, she’s wearing Carter’s shirt, but Tree isn’t the one who’s been cursed to repeat the same day over and over again – this time it’s Carter’s roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu) who is being stalked and killed by a mask-wearing psycho. You probably remember Ryan as the nosey roomie who kept barging in right after Tree wakes up (again and again) in the first HAPPY DEATH DAY.
Thankfully, Ryan knows the one person with first-hand knowledge of this GROUNDHOG DAY nightmare. “I might be able to help with that,” Tree says. “I died 11 times.” That’s the first big difference in the sequel: knowledge — and knowledge is power.
An Entirely New Mystery
But wait! The curse has found Tree again. Not long after discovering that Ryan is trapped in a time loop, Tree wakes up in Carter’s bed on her birthday – just like in the first movie.
Unlike in the first movie, Tree is not taking this development lightly. After having a total (an understandable) meltdown, she retraces her steps to break the loop again. But nothing is the same as it was. The person who was murdering her in HAPPY DEATH DAY? Already dead. The escaped psycho she thought might be responsible? He might actually be responsible this time. Or is he? We don’t know — it’s an entirely new mystery!
No One Is Safe
“And this time… it’s coming after all of us,” says Tree as we watch the baby-faced killer stalk her, Ryan, and Carter. It looks like some of their other classmates might also be affected, each trapped in their own death day loops.
As we learned in the first movie, if someone dies before Tree breaks the loop, that person will stay dead. This time, she’s not only worrying about herself and Carter, but multiple people. Tree has to make sure that they are all still alive when she breaks the loop, or else she has to start the day over again.
Expect even more twists and turns when HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U hits theaters on February 14.