One of the big surprises in the horror genre of 2017 was the reception received for Happy Death Day. The quirky horror which took the Groundhog Day concept to a bloody new level saw more praise for Blumhouse Productions and the way they handle modern day horror and also saw praise heaped on actress Jessica Rothe whom many labelled as a future star.
Now horror audiences are thrust back into the time loop with the sequel Happy Death Day 2 U, a film which promises to answer a lot of the questions that people were left with after the first film… including – how the hell does the time loop work. HEAVY Mag recently sat down with director Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse) to find out what fans can expect this time around.
“You know it is funny we didn’t even have a conversation about a sequel to we were in post-production for the first movie,” he explains when we talk about the events of the first film fit so well into the second film right down to the electricity dropping at the university as if on cue. “We were deep into editing and I came up with the idea for the sequel then and it was crazy because I was able to use these elements from the first movie and integrate them into the story of the second one as if we had always planned to do it, so to some degree it was luck but I like to tell people that there was a bit of fate there because I had clues already buried in the first movie and I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure where it was all going to go. The blackout is certainly one of the lucky things.”
“I mean they are complicated movies to write,” he explains when we talk about how keyboard warriors love to pull apart time loop movies online. “Although this one was slightly less complicated to write because I didn’t have as much repetition in it but I still had a lot of elements that I was changing or repeating… that part was complex. I personally try to stay away from certain websites or social media where people are over analysing things. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole with them, I just prefer to tell the story, have a good time and be done with it. But at the same time we did make a big effort this time to hide some Easter Eggs because I know that people and fans will be looking for them. So if they look closely they will find some cool things that we hid in the second movie… it is kind of Easter Egg heaven.”
You can listen to our full interview with Christopher Landon on Spotify. Happy Death Day 2 U opens in cinemas
