Upon its release in 2017, the Blumhouse Productions film Happy Death Day took people by surprise, becoming a hit with audiences and at the box office. With the sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, seeing its theatrical release this week, director Christopher Landon talks about the now iconic baby mask, worn by the killer, and the other design they considered.
“When I was in early early pre-production [on Happy Death Day], I was trying to figure out what would be that sort of iconic mask.” says the filmmaker. “I feel like all great slasher films have that very memorable mask and at the time my partner and I we were pregnant with our first child. I think I had baby on the brain. So, I went to our mask designer, Tony Gardner, and I pitched him the baby. I pitched him actually two things. I pitched him a baby and I pitched him a pig. I thought that Tree’s character, she was a bit of a selfish pig, so I thought that could be funny. But when I received the prototype for the baby, I knew that was it. It kind of struck the perfect balance of it being creepy, weird, slightly funny, but ultimately scary. And so it seemed to fit the tone of our movie better than anything else.”
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While a pig mask could still be effective and creepy, we have seen it before in films such as Motel Hell and Saw, while the baby mask feels much more original for a slasher. Plus, Happy Death Day and the sequel is generous with the black humor and having a killer wear a mask of a baby face with one lone tooth and huge blue eyes adds to the fun.
Happy Death Day follows a college student (Jessica Rothe) who must relive the day of her murder over and over again, in a loop that will end only when she discovers her killer’s identity. Happy Death Day 2U follows Rothe’s character once again. She finds herself reliving the same day repeatedly after being hunted and killed by a masked slasher, who also now targets her friends.
Happy Death Day 2U was released on February 13th and is now in theaters.
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