Meet Teresa, college sorority girl. To quote another massive tale, bluh bluh huge bitch. She's not a very nice person, as we discover over these opening moments. Total mean girl. Making out with her married professor behind closed doors. The kind of girl you wouldn't blink twice at if you saw her get stabbed to death in a slasher movie. Oops, look at what happened. The babyface mask of the killer here is Ghostface-parallel, but still evocative and creepy. It's a good design and I like it. Shame Teresa got stabbed to death-- OH WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT? THE DAY'S STARTED ALL OVER! I'll just reveal it right now. There's no in-movie explanation for the time loop that Teresa's caught in. I gather from talking to a pal that A) Groundhog Day didn't explain it either and B) the sequel to this movie goes in-depth on the explanation of it. I don't know if I want an explanation. I had my own gonzo theories as I watched that would have been radical if they were it. The serial killer discovered in the third act could have time loop powers, gathering energy by killing his chosen victim over and over again for nefarious purposes. The professor could have been engaging in an elaborate quantum physics experiment. Even Teresa's dad could be in on this shit, doing something to his ungrateful daughter to revive his dead wife.
It was fun to theorize as I watched, but the movie wasn't concerned with that. It was concerned with the mystery and the character arc. The mystery we've already explained; who the hell keeps killing Teresa and why? Well, I haven't explained it, but you know already that the time loop part gets no explanation. There's payoff to the killer, but first we gotta get the character arc stuff. This nightmarish hell loop actually makes Teresa self-reflective, and think about the better person she could be if she ever manages to break free from her karmic curse of revival. It's not infinite, though, as there is residual damage in each repitition from all the violent murder. Bit of a race against time, there. I'm pretty sure this is the same story as Groundhog Day. A mean jerk gets caught in a time loop and, over the repitition, learns how to be not such a big mean jerk. I really like the Teresa that blossoms over the movie. She doesn't lose her snarky bitchiness, for lack of a better term, but she does grow empathy for others. In what she thinks is her last loop she's very upbeat and nice to everyone around her, lets all her regrets out, and genuinely tries to be a better person. Then she goes to kill the serial killer fuck who locked her in this loop, she does it, and...
Whoops. Back again. Yeah no, turns out it was her roommate the whole time, who resented her for being a terrible person and sleeping with the professor. Girl even poisoned Teresa's birthday cupcake, and Teresa finally eating it in that last loop is what clued her into the motive. She finally fends off her attacker, and gets to live another day. A new day, even! This breaks the time loop somehow or another, and I'm fine with that. It's symbolic. This was a neat little movie! Such a simple little pitch, tweaking the formula of a popular movie into a different genre. Yet it works! It really works, and it isn't even too gory or violent. I can live with that. Maybe one day I'll poke at the sequel. It might even be soon. Until then, this can sit as a nice little experience, no matter what the bullshit explanation for the time loop may be.
No comments:
Post a Comment