Happy Death Day 2u trailer: The time time loop continues

Universal Pictures released the first trailer for Happy Death Day 2u, the sequel to Blumhouse’s slasher film Happy Death Day.

One of Blumhouse’s biggest successes from last year was Happy Death Day, a slasher movie that mixed murder, mystery, and time loops. Sounds like a strange combination but to the surprise of most it worked quite well, even adding some comedy here and there.

Happy Death Day follows Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), a college student who is murdered on her birthday and relives the day over and over again. The only solution is finding the killer and basically stop her death. The movie was praised by critics (something we all know it’s not common in this genre) for its combination of dark humor, slasher, and a sci-fi spin, and a sequel was officially announced earlier this year, setting the release date for Feb. 14,  2019. And now, we have a first look.

The first trailer for Happy Death Day 2u is here and it’s… something. Prior to the trailer, the only bit of premise we had was that the movie would address the reason behind the time loop, which was the big question left at the end of the first movie. Back in January, Jessica Rothe spoke to Collider about how this movie will be different from other horror sequels, according to director Christopher Landon.

"“Chris has done this incredible thing where the sequel, the way he described it to me, elevates the movie from being a horror movie – and I wouldn’t even say it’s just a horror movie because it’s a horror, comedy, rom-com drama – into a Back to the future type of genre film where the sequel joins us right from where we left off, it explains a lot of things in the first one that didn’t get explained, and it elevates everything”."

Now that the trailer is here, things are somewhat clearer… and yet a bit confusing too. So, it begins right where the first movie left, but then it goes back to the original loop. Yes, it’s Tree’s birthday again and she’s still dying, though not by the hand of the same killer. Oh, and the new killer (or killers?) is going after her friends too. Of course, Tree continues to be the key to the time loop and its solution, as she has to die in order for time to be reset. Watch it yourself:

As you can see, there’s some science experiment of sorts that goes wrong and could possibly be the cause for the time loop. Still, the main question is: why Tree? Yes, she was not a good person prior to her first death (that sounds weird), but I doubt an experiment gone wrong would magically target someone that needs a reality check. But hey, this is just mere speculation! We’ll see if a second trailer could give a few more clues.

Happy Death Day 2u, directed by Christopher Landon and starring Jessica Rothe, is scheduled for a Feb. 14, 2019 release. What do you think about this first trailer? Let us know in the comments!