Returning to the killer loop, with a scifi twist
Bear McCreary Happy Death Day 2U
Rating: (4 / 5)
Back Lot Records 15/12/2019
TT: 64:50
Aaaah!. The lovely world of film sequels. Usually a big disappointment to (mostly) everybody, but to me always feels like returning to a known place and time. In this case, a movie that took a lot of film fans by surprise, after not expecting much of this “Scream during Groundhog Day at the University” story. But its good humor and heart won a lot of good reviews, myself included. Part of its success was a powerful and thematic score composed by Bear McCreary, which I reviewed (in Spanish) at BSOSpirit (in here)
This time, same team returns to this special world. Although with a small difference: now someone different, with additional scifi twists, suffers the time loop. This time we have “Scream during Groundhog Day going Back to the Future at the University”. And Bear McCreary takes full advantage of it creating a more deeply layered work than on the first one. “Happy Death Day 2U” is far from a mere retread of the first film. So, as a result, it adds two distinctly new musical themes. “I knew I really wanted us revisit themes and elements from the previous score. But I was also very much aware that we were introducing a science fiction element and a new story about Tree’s mom that both required themes of their own.” Those two new elements mentioned by director Christopher Landon become the main attraction of this more ambitious score.
The science fiction theme, like the genre elements themselves, show wider, melodic leaps, epic colors, and many flourishes that make it feel at home in the sprawling epic scores of Williams, Goldsmith, or Silvestri. So the use of these orchestral techniques gave the score an expanded, adventurous tone that is much more fun than serious this time around. Just check out “Solving Equations” for a detailed presence of it, although appears (repeatedly) during the whole score. Then you can add appearances of the first movie themes like “Two Tuesdays” or “Monday the 18th Again” that give background to the parts of the movie that “recreates” what happened the first time around, and the result is a very enjoyable score.
The music treads a similar ground but knows how to give it that something extra that make it worthwhile. Especially when the emotional parts appear during its development. Mainly because, due to its scifi elements, the family of our main character play a very important role during the film. The music introduces elements of grief and loss into what would otherwise be a fun horror romp. This theme is used throughout the film to support a dramatic arc between two characters. Gentle piano notes define pieces like cues like “A Reason to Stay,” “Can’t Save Everyone,” and especially “Birthday Candles”. This last one, perhaps the theme’s most memorable quotation when she has to, emotionally, said goodbye when both lean in together to blow the candles out on a birthday cake. Simply put, is some of most delicate music that I have heard from McCreary since a long time.
Add it his strong and brilliant action music, which leave powerful samples for us in moments like “Stalker at the Gym” or “Electric Substation”. Even some brilliant ones like the outbursts of the main theme from the first film, underscoring our protagonist frustration at being stuck in time again in “Monday the 18th Again”. And the end result is a strong adventure/horror score, fill with a lot of great moments, being old and new. One more example of McCreary’s brilliant work once again.
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