Is Happy Death Day Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Barely, 3 out of 10. It's a slasher with a sense of humor and some jump scares.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
3 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Low
The feeling is gone by the time the credits end.
DOG
Dog: fine
There is no dog in this one.
Ruling: Fine for a group movie night, as long as nobody minds being startled by the same masked person repeatedly.
Happy Death Day runs 97 minutes, and the heroine spends a good share of them being murdered on her birthday. She wakes up in a classmate's dorm room each time, which is the second most annoying part of the day.
The premise, briefly
On her birthday, a college student is attacked by a masked stranger, then wakes up that same morning and has to work out who it was.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
The killer is Lori, the sorority housemate who gave Tree a cupcake that morning. Tree shoves the cupcake into Lori's mouth and kicks her out of an upstairs window. The loop ends, and Tree and Carter both survive.
The scene you're dreading
In the middle, Tombs kills Carter, and Tree realizes that finishing Tombs would leave Carter dead for good. She hangs herself from the bell rope in the tower to restart the day, and Carter is alive again afterward.
The dog
There is no dog in Happy Death Day, so nothing happens to one.
It is a slasher played mostly for laughs, with jump scares throughout and a whodunit that gets solved before the credits.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A birthday that keeps being cancelled
Tree Gelbman wakes up after a night of drunken partying in the dorm room of a classmate named Carter Davis, brushes him off, and goes home to her sorority house. Her housemate Lori hands her a cupcake, which Tree throws out. She then meets Gregory Butler, her professor, and the two are having an affair. That night a figure in a mask lures her into a tunnel and murders her. Tree wakes up in Carter's bed with the day starting over. She tries to dodge the tunnel and makes it to a party, but the masked figure follows her and kills her there too. On the third go she locks herself in her room, only to find the killer was already hiding inside. By now she has worked out that she is stuck in a time loop.
Tree explains the situation to Carter, who suggests she use the loop to find out who is killing her. She spends the next several days following suspects around campus, and the killer finishes her off each time. After one death where she is bludgeoned, she faints and wakes up in the campus hospital. When the masked figure turns up there, she escapes in Gregory's car, but the killer chases her down and she dies again. Back in Carter's bed, she convinces him the loop is real by predicting what will happen that day. A news report tells her that John Tombs, a serial killer, is being held at the same hospital. She decides he must be her murderer and races over to warn the staff that he is about to escape.
The bell tower, and what it costs
Tombs does escape and almost finishes Tree, but Carter follows her to the hospital and rescues her. Tombs then kills Carter and chases Tree up to a bell tower, where she beats him down with a crowbar. As she raises it for the last blow, she works out that killing Tombs will end the loop with Carter still dead. So she climbs higher and hangs herself from the bell rope, which resets the day. This is the scene to brace for, and it happens in the middle of the movie. Tree wakes up in Carter's dorm room, and he is alive. Now she is confident she can solve her own murder. She ends the affair with Gregory, has lunch with her estranged father and starts to patch things up, then traps Tombs at the hospital that night and kills him. She celebrates her birthday and eats Lori's cupcake.
The cupcake was the whole plot
Tree wakes up in the loop again. She goes back to her room planning to run away, and Lori offers her the cupcake a second time. Tree realizes the one time she ate it was the loop in which she died in her sleep, which means Tombs was never the killer. Lori had poisoned the cupcake. Tree never ate it that day, so Lori used her nursing job to pin the murder on Tombs. Lori also admits she was having an affair with Gregory and went mad with jealousy when he preferred Tree. She attacks Tree, who forces the poisoned cupcake into Lori's mouth and sends her through an upstairs window to her death.
The ending, explained
With Lori dead, Tree and Carter sit in a restaurant and go over the day, and Carter says she can sleep in his room. The next morning Tree wakes up convinced the loop has restarted. Carter admits it was a prank and that it really is the following day. Tree is so relieved that she skips being angry, and they kiss. Gregory is out of her life, she has started to reconcile with her father, and Tombs is dead.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: There is no dog in this one.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Happy Death Day scary?
Barely. Happy Death Day is a 3 out of 10 with low dread, jump scares throughout and a lot of dark comedy. The fear is gone when the credits end.
How does Happy Death Day end?
Tree works out that Lori poisoned her cupcake and kicks Lori out of a window. The next morning Carter reveals that her fear of another loop was a prank, and the two kiss.
Does the dog die in Happy Death Day?
No. There is no dog in Happy Death Day, so none dies.
Is there a post-credits scene in Happy Death Day?
No. Happy Death Day has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is the killer in Happy Death Day?
Lori Spengler, Tree's sorority housemate. She poisoned a cupcake meant for Tree out of jealousy over Gregory, then framed the serial killer John Tombs when the plan failed.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Happy Death Day is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can skip the repeated birthdays and still know how Happy Death Day ends. Install Scaredy Cat and it blurs horror before you see it.
