Happy Death Day was one of the surprise cinematic successes of 2017, earning a nice mint at
the box office and entertaining audiences with its Groundhog Day-meets-Scream plot line.
On the surface, the story is simple: a college girl is forced to relive the same day over
and over until she finds out who's killing her.
But while the movie provides a fun mix of genre humor and jump scares, Happy Death Day
also explores some deeper issues in character development.
Here's a look at what the ending to the film really meant for our birthday girl.
Mean girl redemption
In the beginning of the story, Tree is depicted as the stereotypical sorority girl—basically
some snivelling version of Regina George and Chanel from Scream Queens.
She's mean and materialistic and doesn't seem to care about anyone but herself.
But while audiences are immediately inclined to hate Tree, her backstory starts to trickle
in and offer some sympathetic elements along the way.
As the story moves forward, she becomes almost likable and as the stabs roll in, they start
to sting more and more.
Screenwriter Scott Lobdell told Thrillist that he intended to subvert the traditional
heroine trope with Tree, saying:
"Every slasher film opens up with the mean girl getting killed and the good girl living
till the end.
And I thought, How can I make the mean girl and the good girl the same person?"
There've been a lot of final girls to hit the scream queen scene, but never quite like
this.
"I did it!
Wooooo!
Yeah!"
A guardian angel?
One thing the film does not explain is the scientific or supernatural reason for Tree's
time loop.
Director Christopher Landon has said that he meant for it to be a big mystery, but that
hasn't stopped fans from guessing what started it all.
One popular theory is that her deceased mother is orchestrating the whole thing from beyond
the grave to force Tree to finally deal with her grief and reconcile with her father.
After all, she continually leaves a bracelet her mother gave her behind and seems to love
the night life's ability to drown out her sorrows.
And she seems especially un-interested in celebrating her birthday, which she just so
happens to share with her late mom.
As she comes face to face with her mortality, though, she starts to reflect on memories
of her mom and eventually realizes that she needs to help repair her fractured family
dynamic with her dad.
"If my mom saw me, now -- who I've become -- I don't think she'd be very proud."
The guardian angel concept might seem silly, but how else do you explain a woman living
the same bitter end again and again like this?
A red herring
Since Tree's personal grim reaper is always concealed by a baby mask, we don't know for
sure who's responsible for her many ends throughout the movie.
So, once we learn that a known serial slayer named Joseph Tombs has been hospitalized nearby,
he seems like just as good a suspect as any.
Tree decides to get ahead of the attack and stop Tombs in his tracks, but it takes a couple
of tries to get it right.
And even when she does manage to get the upper hand on the vile villain, there's a catch.
Since her budding beau Carter has tried to save her and gets lost in the process, Tree
knows that if she breaks the time loop, she'll sacrifice her new fella.
As much as she might want out of the vicious cycle, she still decides to off herself and
try again instead.
The scene showcases Tree's sudden sense of selflessness and puts off the inevitable revelation
that Tombs isn't who she's really after anyway.
Superficial killer, superficial world
As we learn in the film's final moments, Tree's attacker has been right under her nose the
entire time.
Instead of an escaped convict or some stalker ex, it's her jealous roommate Lori who arrives
as the culprit.
From the very beginning, Lori offers Tree a birthday cupcake as a gift.
And each time, our hero declines to eat it.
She finally takes a celebratory bite once she believes she's vanquished her villain
by taking out Jeffrey Tombs, and, whaddya know.
She wakes up again to the same thing.
"This can't be happening.
I killed him!
I stopped it!"
Tree then realizes that the cupcake caused her demise and has one final fight with Lori.
In the fracas, it's revealed that her roommate started her slaughter spree because of jealousy
over a boy.
Tree manages to kick her roommate to the curb, in a very literal sense, and finally manages
to make it to tomorrow -- despite one cruel morning prank pulled off by Carter.
But more importantly, her true moment of salvation stems from the fact that she's also laid waste
to some very bad habits and can start this new leg of her life on the right foot.
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