10 Films That Helped Blumhouse Take Over Cinema
8. Happy Death Day
When a genre has its tropes skewered, it can force that genre into hiding for a while. After Clint Eastwood took apart the western with Unforgiven, it took a long time for another great example to appear. The same has been true of the slasher movie ever since Scream took a kitchen knife to all of the conventions and repeated ideas that the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween were built on.
Then, Blumhouse came along with Happy Death Day. It's Groundhog Day with an infusion of slasher horror, following Jessica Rothe as a college student forced to relive her own murder by a masked assassin every day, until she can work out who is killing her. Rothe's performance is akin to that of a vintage scream queen, with everything turned right up to 11 in pursuit of the ultimate campy turn.
Happy Death Day is a solid example of the Blumhouse ability to give a tired sub-genre an inventive blast of adrenaline to get it going again. With its silly premise and refreshing self-awareness, it's the ideal movie to bring the slasher back into vogue.