The horror genre is one which has gone through many trials and tribulations over the years, from its original inception with the classic universal monsters in the ‘30s and ‘40s, to the rise of the slasher genre in the late ‘70s with the original “Halloween,” to the heavy emphasis on found footage starting with “The Blair Witch Project” in 1999, which would continue for a majority of the 2000s. Particularly with that last decade, the horror genre has devolved into merely an excuse to have a bunch of bad actors together in a small location, with a bunch of jump scares thrown in to simulate fear without actually possessing any substance.

The 2010s have jump-started a new wave in the horror genre, however, as there seems to be a new movement spearheaded by Blumhouse Pictures: using small budgets to actually tell some really interesting, unique stories that do not rely on the tropes and cliches associated with the genre. 2017 alone saw the release of three such examples: M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split,” Jordan Peele’s revolutionary “Get Out” and Christopher Landon’s “Happy Death Day,” a fun, weird little film that revolved around a self-centered college girl who repeated the same day over and over again, ending each day with getting killed by a serial killer wearing a baby mask. Despite following a very familiar formula, the film ended up being another success for Blumhouse as well as a surprisingly fun little romp. It was nothing special but unique enough to be memorable.

Money talks, low budgets usually churn out better profits, and fast forward two years later to the sequel, “Happy Death Day 2U.” Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe, “Forever my Girl”) is back, and just when she thought everything was back to normal, all of a sudden the time loop is now affecting her new boyfriend, Carter’s (Israel Broussard, “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu). Determined to help him get out of this time loop, Tree finds herself dealing with all sorts of crazy new shenanigans that come with expanded-upon time travel sequels, including doppelgangers, parallel dimensions and having to deal with seeing dead relatives again.

What is described above may come off as sounding cool in concept, but in execution, audiences are unfortunately in for yet another jumbled, overly complicated mess of a movie. Landon takes over the writing duties this time from previous scribe Scott Lobdell, and it shows in all the wrong ways. The dialogue is much more corny, the time travel aspects do not make any sense, even when they are explained to the audience, and the subject matter feels a lot more disingenuous. The first film had an incredible sense of self-awareness that allowed for the audience and the characters to not take it too seriously, which made for a lot of the comedic moments. Here, a lot of those moments try to actually act like they matter, as well as try to intentionally force humor into a lot of situations that do not call for it. That and the fact that this film expects its audience members to believe that college students in 2019 are capable of inventing time travel devices are inherently ridiculous.

In 2017, around the same time as the first film, there was another sequel released to a surprisingly good film, that being “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” and there is no better comparison. Both films followed up impressively good first entries with good premises, engaging characters and surprisingly engaging subject matters. Both films ended up trading genuine emotion for cheap gags, proving far inferior to their predecessors and overall, just feeling like large wastes of time. “Happy Death Day 2U” is the definition of a disappointing sequel and one that does not deserve to make a profit, despite its remarkably low budget.

Image from Universal Pictures via YouTube