History Film / HappyDeathDay

* ABirthdayNotABreak: Tree is being slaughtered daily on her own birthday.

* DeathBySex: Played with. Tree is exactly the kind of shallow, promiscuous party girl that traditionally dies early in slasher movies, but she can't stay dead.

** Carter and Ryan’s room has posters for ''Film/TheyLive'' and ''Film/MysteryScienceTheater3000TheMovie'' on the wall.

* JerkToNiceGuyPlot: Tree starts the film as an AlphaBitch, and while there are sympathetic reasons behind her persona, they don't alter the fact that she is bitchy towards pretty much everyone. Over the course of the film, she slowly becomes a genuinely better person.

* YankTheDogsChain: [[spoiler:Tree escapes from the killer in the hospital and celebrates ecstatically, only to then be pulled over by the police. She is about to be arrested and taken into custody, only for the killer to reappear and mow the officer down. Due to being handcuffed and locked inside the cop car, she is completely defenseless and can only watch as the killer blows up the vehicle with her still inside.]]

* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:Lori, who seems like the TokenGoodTeammate of the bitchy sorority, but is actually orchestrating Tree's murder [[DisproportionateRetribution because a guy that she wanted to sleep with behind his wife' back is having his affair with Tree instead]].]]

* GriefInducedSplit: Somewhat {{downplayed}}, and a familial variation. Tree is distant towards her father, and before her character development, she deliberately avoids seeing him at a pre-arranged dinner and ignoreshis phone calls, in multiple iterations of the loop. This is because of her inability to move past her mother's death, and in the penultimate loop, she makes it to the dinner meeting and gives a heartfelt apology and a talk on her mother's death.

-->'''Tree''': Who takes someone in her first date to a Subway? And it's not like you have a footlong.

* BrainyBrunette: The first of many zig-zagged hair colour tropes. Tree proves herself clever at the end, is taking advanced science classes at the beginning and is blonde. Danielle is a brunette and is as dumb as a post. The blond Tim and Ryan are both naive in their own ways (generously speaking), which makes them less than clever overall. It's played straight with the dark-haired Carter, who provides strategies for Tree, and Tree's roommate Lori, a nursing student. [[spoiler:Lori so much so that she outsmarted Carter and Tree for nearly the entire movie.]]

* EmbarrassingRingtone: Lori changes Tree's ringtone to be [[https://www.soundcloud.com/user-577153477/busy-day-birthday an annoying voice singing "Hey, it's your birthday! And now you got to pick up the phone".]]

%% * IAmGreatSong: "Confident" by Music/DemiLovato, which plays during the HardWorkMontage, is this for both the hero and villain of the story if you listen closely to the lyrics.

** Carter and Ryan’s room has posters for Film/TheyLive and Film/MysteryScienceTheater3000TheMovie on the wall.

* DarkIsEvil: Tombs, when he finally appears, is clad entirely in black.

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Used as a plot point towards the end. Every time Tree dies she wakes up weaker and weaker and she feels the after effects of whatever killed her last. Additionally this makes it harder to fight back. It's not clear if Tree has a set number of lives but if it continues, she realises she might not wake up.

** Tree may appear a vacuous slacker coasting her way through Gregory's classes in the beginning, but he's a doctor and she's a med student... which takes some brains to get on to in the first place. She pulls off some very smart, well prepared plans when taking on Tombs, and is very good at gathering clues and taking notes. [[spoiler: She also figures out that Lori is the real mastermind is at the end.]]

* AdultFear: The idea of age yielding diminishing returns. Every death causes Tree to feel physically weaker and takes a toll on her body, forcing her more and more to rely on experience and the wit that it brings. Tree's confidence in herself reaches zigzagging highs and lows as a result as she even begins to react to Carter's "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" bumper sticker on his door with existential annoyance on occasion.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: During the loop montage where Tree spends each one ruling out a suspect for who kills her, she goes casually walking through campus completely naked for some unexplained reason.

* BrainyBrunette: The first of many zig-zagged hair colour tropes. Tree proves herself clever at the end, is taking advanced science classes at the beginning and is blonde. Danielle is a brunette and is as dumb as a post. The blond Tim and Ryan are both naive in their own ways (generously speaking), which makes them less than clever overall [[spoiler: and Lori has the most senseless, petty reason for all the carnage she wreaks.]] It's played straight with the dark-haired Carter, who provides strategies for Tree.

** Finally Danielle, exclusively from Tree. Tree is in the middle of swiping the guy she likes from her, lies to her via text about doing so, publicly humiliates her with a milkshake in the GoldenPath loop and points out she's a tool (direct quote) to a packed diner during her TV interview at the end. Just for good measure Tree kills her once as well... which is an honour normally reserved for self-defense purposes. It's Danielle, though, so [[HateSink who cares?]]

** All of the brunettes on the other hand except Carter seem to be pretty dim. Tim is too naive to understand that their respective behaviours are problematic, [[spoiler: Lori has a pretty stupid reason for all the things she does]] and Danielle seems to have an IQ of about 4. Carter's certainly capable of thinking though.

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: The one person Tree never put on her list of suspects was Lori, because she's the nicest girl in her sorority. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: Lori turns out to be the Babyface Killer the whole time]].

* AboveTheInfluence: Carter vehemently denies taking advantage of a wasted Tree the previous night.

A sequel entitled ''Film/HappyDeathDay2U'' released in 2019. In it, Tree finds herself in another time loop and facing a new killer who is going after her and all her friends.

* CrowbarCombatant: Tree gets the drop on John Tombs in the bell tower by whacking him with a crowbar [[spoiler:She stops herself from killing him with it, because she thinks that if she does, the loop will end and Carter will be dead forever because Tombs had earlier broken his neck, so she hangs herself to restart the loop.]]

* RealityEnsues:
** Tree has a CatFight with Danielle in the street and are hit by a moving vehicle (in this case, a bus) within seconds.
** Tree escapes the killer in one loop by stealing her professor's car. She screams in victory... only to be pulled over for speeding.

* SerialKiller: John Tombs, a serial killer who specifically targets young blonde women, and is said to have claimed six victims already. Subverted with the Babyface Killer, who targets Lori and Lori alone.

* SerialKiller: John Tombs, a serial killer who specifically targets young blonde women, and is said to have claimed six victims already.

* YankTheDogsChain: [[spoiler:Tree escapes from the killer in the hospital and celebrates ecstatically, only to then be pulled over by the police. She is about to be arrested and taken into custody, only for the killer to reappear and mow the officer down.]]