July 11, 2018
Starring: Milo Cawthorne, Olivia Tennet, Ari Boyland
Tagline: Life After Death... After Death... After Death...
Trivia: The three main actors are from Power Rangers R.P.M. (2009), Mike Ginn and Adelaide Kane also appeared on the show. The screenwriter and the director also worked on the Power Ranger films.
I found this film on Shudder where they described it as a movie that seems like if Sam Raimi had directed Groundhog's Day. That is a pretty solid description of the film. The characters are a bit over the top and the first half hour is difficult to get through, but after that the movie gets really good with a lot of twists and turns that keeps the movie exciting until the end. There are also some great death scenes and just enough comedy.
The movie is about two drug addicts, Milton (Milo Cawthorne) and Skylar (Olivia Tennet), who meet at a drug rehab center and decide to break out with the help of Skylar's boyfriend Russell (Ari Boyland) to cook up 85 pounds of meth in a "one last score" type of situation. Milton is nerdish and originally hesitant buy over-the-top Skylar plays on his attraction to her and convinces him. After breaking out and arriving at a cabin, the three take meth and peyote and Milton discovers that Russell is insane. However, he decides to cook the meth nonetheless. After an altercation, Milton and Skylar murder Russell but because the cabin is set on a cursed Indian land, they all continually wake up to the same day (the plot of Groundhog's Day). Killing Russell over and over again, Milton and Skylar need to figure out a way to break the loop that they are stuck in.
In the beginning of the film the characters of Skylar and Russell were so obnoxious that I almost turned off the film. At couple times in the film my wife even turned to me and said, "This film sucks." Skylar's character tries so hard to let everyone know she's a badass that it seems cartoonish. At a rehab meeting she makes fun of a woman who was raped by her uncle when she was ten and petitions the group for a meth cook. Russell is the same, brandishing weapons and slipping the group peyote his character goes to extremes to live up to the crazy boyfriend trope. However, these two character's more extreme characteristics become muted as the movie progresses and Milton starts to become the badass. Repetitive murder has a pacifying effect on the group. Milton gains self confidence and Skylar's insecurities start to become more apparent. What seemed so obnoxious at the beginning of the film may have just been a storytelling technique to show character growth.
The deaths are pretty great. It helps that the cabin where they are staying is a hunting cabin with an assortment of knifes, axes, crossbows, etc. We watch as Skylar and Milton kill Russell in every conceivable way (at one point they even mention that they tried to kill Russell with every weapon they could in hopes that one weapon would be the key to breaking the cycle). Another fun addition, is that while everything goes back the way it was when they continually wake up on the same day, what remains is the dead body. So in addition to having to murder Russell, they also have to hide his body, every day.
What really makes the film memorable (aside from being a successful horror Groundhog's Day... sorry Happy Death Day... you had so much potential that just didn't work) is the twists that the film writers put into the screenplay. At a point in the film we Milton, as the viewer, realize that Milton was originally the victim being killed dozens of times and resurrected every morning before Skylar decided to choose Milton to kill Russell. There are a number of other great twists that make the repetition of murder/resurrection interesting.
Overall, I thought this was a great film with a fun plot and characters that by the end of the movie, I really came to connect with. You just have to have patience through the first thirty minutes.
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