The sequel dispenses with a lot of horror and relies too much on an encyclopedic knowledge of he first film.

The sequel to Blumhouse’s high-concept 2017 horror-comedy Happy Death Day is a science fiction saga, a horror movie, a romantic dramedy, and a campus farce all rolled up together. Jessica Rothe again stars as Tree, a woman living out a Groundhog Day scenario where she keeps experiencing the same day over and over, ending with her murder.

In this inventive but ultimately disappointing sequel, college student Tree is still reliving her own death, this time with alternate timelines.

A baby-masked psycho is still on the loose, but this sequel to the slasher version of 'Groundhog Day' has more convolutions, less thrills.

The ride gets weirder and the stakes higher in Christopher Landon's sequel 'Happy Death Day 2U.'

PG-13 • 1 hour 40 min • 2019

★★★☆☆ The day after the events of Happy Death Day – in which Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) must relive her murder over and over until...

The first installment of director Christopher Landon’s horror riff on Groundhog Day worked its premise to amusing enough effect: grief-damaged young woman Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) gets trapped in a time loop that sees her killed again and again on her birthday, but she manages to use said loop to uncover and eventually thwart her killer. As a bonus, she works on her issues and falls in love in the process. The sequel makes it clear why there was no Groundhog Day 2: The Return of Punxutawney Phil. What is left to be done? Answer: not much, so let’s pad out a consideration of What If Life Had Gone Differently? with forced drama, mild danger, halfhearted gags, undefined characters, underwhelming romance, and a lot — too much, really —of science talk surrounding a time-loop gizmo named after Sisyphus. (Okay, the name is cute.) Probably the most memorable bit — if only because of its willingness to wander into the realm of questionable taste, and so make the audience maybe feel something — is our heroine’s played-for-laughs suicide montage. Rothe mugs and emotes for all she’s worth, which is something, but her effort only highlights the desultory character of everything around her.

Stalk-and-kill movies bear some resemblance to classic farces, but none have taken the similarities as far as Happy Death Day and its sequel.

Sequel to the 2017 hit is a slight downgrade from the original

Blumhouse's time-loop slasher sequel returns, with hugely entertaining results. Read the Empire review.

The sequel to the ‘Groundhog Day’-style slasher film still works.

The 2017 horror comedy was a perfect genre movie; maybe they should have left well enough alone

The sequel to the popular Happy Death Day keeps leading lady Jessica Rothe in the driver's seat for a whole new (and divisive) adventure.

Happy Death Day 2U repeats the same formula over and over again: EW review

Happy Death Day 2U: in the sequel, Tree Gelbman(Jessica Rothe) discovers that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead.

The loopy and meta Happy Death Day 2U follows in the footsteps of its 2017 predecessor by being a surprisingly subversive work of horror.

Christopher Landon’s quick-turnaround sequel is pure self-knowing nonsense – a smoothly executed, briskly paced mash-up of horror tropes, time-travel paradoxes and silly campus slapstick

Jessica Rothe returns in the sequel ""Happy Death Day 2 U" as it migrates from horror to science fiction.

Jessica Rothe is still a final girl worth cheering for, but Christopher Landon's choppy followup doesn't have any idea what it wants to be.