[Toast and Kent love time loop stories. With this suddenly unpaused "Loopty Loo" series, T&K explore just what's happening in a film or TV show loop, and maybe over time, they will deconstruct what it is that makes for a good time loop. Its been on pause for quite some time. Kent did a few solo, but its time we got back to this.]
2017, Christopher Landon (Drop) -- download
[Toast] I am also using this rewatch to kill a Dark Year lapsed movie. When I saw this back in 2018, otherwise known as aforementioned Dark Year, I freaking loved it. Not only did it hit our Loopty vibe, but it was also mildly templated to the teen slasher horror movie vibe that fits well into my 31 Days of Halloween series. It was followed by a sequel, Happy Death 2U, which we liked almost as much, and an amusing thing happened while (re)watching this one -- since both movies are about the same time loop I had some of the loops mashed up in my head. End this movie with a, "Hey, what about loop x?" Does that means we also have to do a Loopty entry for the sequel -- of course it does !
[Kent] Toot-toot, back on the loopty loop train.
How did the Loop Begin?
[Toast] In this movie, I don't think we are ever really told. But we are led to believe its related to Tree's (love the details, Theresa goes by 'tree'; Jessica Rothe, Boy Kills World) current place in her life -- she wakes up on her birthday, which she shared with her mother before her mother's death. She doesn't deal well with this day. She got pretty wasted the night before and ended up in the dorm room of nice guy Carter (no caps, no quotes, no incel energy; Israel Broussard, To All the Boys I've Loved Before) who just let her sleep it off. She barely pays him any attention, while its obvious he is infatuated, and stalks off into the day, through the main quad of the university where we are treated to a bunch of random occurrences that any loopty regular viewer will know are there purely for the repeat value: a goth kid staring at her, an eco girl asking for a signature, kids studying (who studies at 9am?) who are sprayed by sprinklers, pledge kid falling unconscious, date boy she'd rather avoid, etc. She makes it back to the sorority house where she has barely disguised hostility with another girl, and with her roommate, and rests some before she is supposed to attend her own surprise birthday party. Instead she gets killed by someone wearing a mask of the school mascot -- a creepy baby -- on the way to the party.
Enter second loop.
[Kent] That about sums it up. What is clear from the original day, and the first repeat day of the loop, is that Tree is not a nice person, a key point of the story. She's kind of disgusted that she's wound up in nice guy Carter's dorm room (whom she doesn't yet see as a nice guy, just some guy she assumes took advantage of her while she was drunk... and her lack of reaction to this seems to indicate she's been in this situation before). She's pretty rude to everyone she encounters, she's ignoring her dad on her birthday, oh, and she's been sleeping with her professor, who is married. She seems like she's on a path with the intent of sabotaging her own life. Just a killer in a baby mask has designs on doing so first.
What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop?
[Toast] Well, like most people who get stuck in time loops, they only just notice the second loop is happening. A major sense of deja vu. Carter, the nice guy who gave her his bed, is happy she remembered his name. Originally she didn't but..
[Kent] Yup, just the usual going through the motions of the first time but with the weird awareness that it's all happened before. Only little moments are different...like not going under the bridge where she was killed the first time and actually making it to her surprise birthday party at a frat house...where she is killed after sneaking off with a cute frat boy (also killed).
WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop?
[Toast] It is via subsequent loops we learn Tree is not necessarily a bad person but she has not been her best self for the last few years, being completely preoccupied with grief, shutting out everyone and everything in her life. She believes she is in the loop to learn from it, but really, she's tad bit occupied with surviving the night.
No, nobody can be brought into the loop.
[Kent] At least until the sequel, yeah, we think she's in the loop, because, like in Groundhog Day, we think she needs to learn to be a kinder person, to deal with her trauma. Oh and also solve the mystery of her own murder.
How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?
[Toast] I am thinking the loop could last days, if not weeks, as long as she survives. But she never does, and with each subsequent death, she's tossed right back into Carter's bed full of the memory of that death.
[Kent] As far as we know from what the movie shows us, only death resets the loop. I wonder if in the one loop where Tree makes amends with her roommate and survives and doesn't eat the cupcake [uh, spoilers I guess], would she, say grow old, pass away, then wake up in Carter's bed 60 years earlier? At one point though Tree resets the day by intentionally killing herself, because Carter is accidentally killed and she really kinda likes him at that point.
[Toast] OMG now there's a time loop movie for you, one where someone thinks they have figgered it, avoids the death that triggers it, only to find out that ANY death can lead to the loop. I wonder what having an entire life inside your head could lead to, and its not likely you would remember that actual originator day that caused the loop.... or would you, being back in a body that has that day's memories fresh & clear.
[Toasty's Other Voice] Wut? What am I doing here? Oh, making a comment on how this was part of why this whole project started -- so the two of you could ponder the metaphysics of time loop movies.
How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any effect on them, their personality, their outlook?
[Toast] I didn't count, as I was enjoying just (re)watching the movie, but I would say about a dozen. And yes, oh yes does it have an affect on her, in both emotional and physical ways. For one, she's doing a wee bit of the Groundhog Day thing, where she strives to become a better person. But mostly she has to survive the night because there seems to be a lingering physical effect from each loop. After passing out immediately upon waking, she finds herself in the hospital with signs of numerous death defying scars in her body. Its a bit of a toss away idea, for fun, as after she blows up / is burned to death in the back of a police car, she does not wake up with a body covered in burn scars. But it does imply she will not last very many loops at this rate.
[Kent] I counted ten deaths in total so is that 10 loops, or 11? Does the first day count as a loop? The last? But yes, being in the loop does affect them greatly, and it was my big takeaway from this rewatch. Tree is aware she's not been a nice person, and she's aware that it is self-destructive behaviour, it's avoidant behaviour. She's sleeping around, backstabbing, drinking heavily all to avoid really processing any emotions. Being in the loop, though, has her confronting her selfishness, how her emotional state not only impacts herself but others. It's really that selfishness that has set her killer off, and what Tree needs to overcome in her life in order to progress.
What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware? Does anything happen if they become aware?
[Toast] Nobody else is aware. She almost immediately (maybe loop 5 ?) tells Carter and he doesn't dismiss her immediately, but she is serious by doing the "predict the [quad] events just before they happen" to his amazement. That doesn't make him aware beyond this loop, but does allow him to provide some basic suggestions about ruling out who could be trying to kill her.
[Kent] Right, she tries a couple times to bring Carter up to speed, but for the most part she's aware she's on her own, and sees it as too much effort to explain it all over and over and over again, so she doesn't try too much.
What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?
[Toast] Yes, she thinks they are all real. They do matter. In fact, when Carter dies saving her life, in one loop, she knows she has to die in order to reset and save him.
[Kent] If anything, people in the loop start to matter more and more to her. She starts to connect with them on a more human level, the walls have come down.
Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop?
[Toast] Most memorable event in the loop? Or is this more favourite loop? Definitely the inevitable "fuck it" loop, where the protagonist just gives up caring about anything, cuz its all just going to be forgotten (by everyone else; and forgotten is never the right word) so... well, she parades gleefully naked through the quad. Its about the only time during the loops that we see Tree just feel free; and she deserves the break.
[Kent] I agree, her strutting naked through the quad is her liberation from the barriers she's surrounded herself with. It's an apt metaphor. The sorority has been all about keeping up appearances, about perfection, and she's done with pretending to be someone who she's not. She's freeing herself from pretentiousness.
How does this stack up in the subgenre?
[Toast] This is a perfect mash-up movie, playing on the primary structure of Groundhog Day but having fun via the teen slasher trope. But really, its more about Jessica Rothe's performance -- she just plays the pain, frustration, realization and silliness of it all, so very freaking well. I might feel a bit detracting from the genre as the "reason" is never fully explained, but that is also the centre of Groundhog Day. Does the fact the sequel does explain it, kind of ruin it, or enhance it? We shall see in that writeup.
[Kent] I do not have an official ranking but I would say it's in the top ten on the lower end. It's a pretty basic loop setup and structure (it's just Groundhog Day meets Scream), but as Toasty says, it's Rothe's show and she delivers both the character development and emotional arc so wonderfully. I have such goodwill for Rothe that I forgot how much of a ...not nice lady she was at the start of this thing, and she had to win back that goodwill, which she does so easily.
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