’Happy Death Day’s Original Ending Would Have Completely Ruined One of the Best Modern Horror Movies -

Long before he was co-writing Heart Eyes and directing Drop (and almost making Scream 7), Christopher Landon made a fun little horror movie in 2017 called Happy Death Day. Starring Jessica Rothe, the movie’s plot combined a slasher with Groundhog Day, as a college student named Tree (Rothe) finds herself being murdered by a masked assailant every day, only to wake up and relive the experience over and over again. To stop the time loop, she must discover who the mystery attacker is and put a stop to them. Happy Death Day was a box office hit, making $125 million worldwide, and leading to a sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, in 2019. Recently, we got the great news that Happy Death Day 3 might finally come to fruition, but it almost didn’t happen because Landon’s shocking original idea was to kill Tree at the end of the first film. The scene was even filmed, and it was only because of test audiences that Landon was compelled to change it.

‘Happy Death Day’ Gives Tree a Happy Ending

Tree might be the heroine of Happy Death Day, but when we first meet her she’s not an easy person to root for. Her mother, who was Tree’s best friend, passed away three years ago, and now in college, Tree is lost without her. She’s become an angry young woman who is hard to be around, and if that’s not bad enough, she’s killed on her birthday by someone wearing a creepy baby face mask. Worst. Present. Ever. Instead of facing the afterlife though, Tree wakes up back in her bed, reliving the same day as if nothing happened, only to be attacked again.

With the help of a few friends, Tree has to discover who hates her so much to end her life. The culprit turns out to be her very own roommate, Lori (Ruby Modine), who has attacked her supposed friend because she’s jealous of the affair Tree’s having with one of their professors. Tree is able to kill Lori, thus ending the time loop. During the process, she has learned to grieve for her mother, make up with the father she has pushed away, and let in the guy, Carter (Israel Broussard), who has stayed by her side the entire time.

The Original ‘Happy Death Day’ Ending Saw Tree Being Killed

The original Happy Death Day ending would have given us part of that, with Tree killing Lori, only to then take away her happy ending in the cruelest of ways. In Landon’s first attempt at a conclusion, Tree is beaten up and in a hospital bed with her father and Carter standing at her bedside. Tree is relieved to learn that it’s the next day, and it’s no longer her death day. She has a light conversation with the two before a doctor comes in, telling them Tree needs to rest. Dad and Carter leave, but not before Tree tells Carter that he owes her a date. It’s an adorable moment, but it’s also Tree’s last. Seconds later a nurse arrives, and sinister music begins to play as she injects a drug into her IV, telling her that it’s not for Tree’s pain but her own. She is the wife of the man Tree was having an affair with and now this lady is out for revenge. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Tree says before her heart rate monitor flatlines and the movie comes to an end.

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This was Christopher Landon’s intended ending for Happy Death Day, but thankfully, some very opinionated movie watchers at test screenings changed his mind. In an interview with Cinemablend, Landon said his intention was for the ending to be a cliffhanger, because Tree being killed again would suggest that she was getting pulled into the time loop once again. He added, “The audiences were furious. They were so pissed off because they felt betrayed. They were like, ‘Wait, she did all this hard work and made all these changes and she’s a better person now. And then you kill her again?!'”

Killing Tree Would Have Ruined the Message of ‘Happy Death Day’

Tree (Jessica Rothe) in a hospital bed in the alternate ending of 'Happy Death Day' — Image via Universal Pictures

Christopher Landon’s original ending to Happy Death Day was attempting to hint at a possible sequel, but what if we never got one? After all, Happy Death Day was meant to be a trilogy, but after the failure of the follow-up, which only pulled in half of the box office haul of the original, that idea was nixed. If we were given the original ending and then never a sequel, Tree would have stayed dead forever. And even if we did get a sequel that showed Tree was still alive, it would have left audiences for approximately two years believing she was dead (and potentially losing interest in the series).

Putting Tree in this situation was not what her character deserved. It’s reminiscent of how Ridley Scott put Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) through so much in Alien, only for his original idea being to kill her in the end. With Happy Death Day, it would have been worse because this is a redemption story similar to Groundhog Day, where Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a horrible person who can only escape his time loop when he becomes a better man who lives for others. Imagine if Phil died as soon as he escaped the loop!

Tree has done some bad things in her life, including the affair, but we still root for her because we can understand her pain. Her mother’s death has destroyed her. She can’t love or trust anyone and even rejects her own father, not because she hates him, but because it hurts to feel. However, Happy Death Day allows her to go through a redemption arc where she comes to terms with that pain and lets people in. In the alternate ending, none of that would have mattered. She would have grown just to die, and why, because of karma? What’s the intended message? Maybe a much darker movie could have gotten away with that, but Happy Death Day was a lighter, more fun horror comedy. There are no laughs to be found when you kill the hero and destroy the themes of an entire movie.