Comments on: Happy Death Day and Life’s Trauma https://www.horrorhomeroom.com/happy-death-day-lifes-trauma/ Sat, 21 Jul 2018 07:19:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.1 By: Elizabeth https://www.horrorhomeroom.com/happy-death-day-lifes-trauma/#comment-14727 Sat, 21 Jul 2018 07:19:50 +0000 http://www.horrorhomeroom.com/?p=3883#comment-14727 In reply to Nykolas Friedrich.

Thanks so much for the great comment–and you’re right to correct me on the point about philosophical content. (And thanks for the Heidegger references.) Generally I think just about all horror films speak to significant political issues! Dawn

]]> By: Nykolas Friedrich https://www.horrorhomeroom.com/happy-death-day-lifes-trauma/#comment-14726 Sat, 21 Jul 2018 06:00:24 +0000 http://www.horrorhomeroom.com/?p=3883#comment-14726 Great review of the movie (I think it’s the best one I came across)! Your insight about trauma is absolutely on point. If my memory doesn’t fail me, the idea of trauma originated in XIX century as a way of explaining the behavior of railway disaster survivors (PTSD). The idea originally was that a physical damage – thus, literally a trauma – in the brain or something like that explained it. Happy Death Day literalizes the idea of emotional trauma through the physical trauma in Tree’s body.

However, I must disagree with you concerning the philosophical content of the movie. My impression is that Happy Death Day is deceptively simple. I think it embodies a reflection on what Heidegger called our “being-towards-death” (a good reading about it – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/13/heidegger-being-time). It’s only when Tree faces the possibility of her death literally by repeatedly dying that Tree achieves some kind of authenticity.

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