The protagonist Theresa ("Tree") is a sorority sister at Potsdam University (in the film, the name was changed). Engagingly portrayed by Jessica Rothe, we follow her on her daily adventures throughout. Based on her snarky interactions,
she doesn't have any close emotional relationships at school. The story has similarities with Groundhog Day: the day start over again (on her birthday) as soon as Tree is murdered. Everything in her world is reset, except for her memories. The story also has similarities with the comedy slasher Scream, as Tree
is generally stabbed to death with a big knife to some black comedy effect.
I'll describe the script (spoilers ahead) with some indication of how the film changed from the script.
Script synopsis:
In the opening scene, Tree wakes up in Carter's dorm room wearing his t-shirt. He's a guy she met for the first time at a drunken frat party the night before. He's already awake, busy puttering around his room, and treats her politely. (You are presuming he and she were both extremely drunk and she had sex without being sober enough to consent. This is an intentional set-up, to pay off on page 75. Wait for it.)
* She sees her dad has left a voicemail, gets dressed, leaves his room, forgetting her bracelet, and walks across the quad (a large area of paved walkways and open grassy spaces) to her sorority, Kappa Delta. She passes a number of people (e.g., Keith, who we will meet later in the script) in each of these walks across the quad.
* In the house foyer, Tree has a conversation with a housemate Danielle about a sorority meeting at noon. Danielle has a bossy/snarky personality but doesn't seem mad at Tree.
* Tree goes to her room and talks with her roommate Lori about the frat party that night. Lori tells her she was very drunk, vomited, and French-kissed Nick, Danielle's BF, right in front of her. Lori gives her a cupcake with a candle on it.
* Tree cruelly tosses it in the trash ("too many carbs"), finds her textbook and heads off to class. She's having an affair with her "Science professor," Gregory Butler, who also works at the campus hospital. She has no emotional stakes in the hookup.
* After class she goes to the lunchtime sorority meeting. Carter drops off her bracelet. The sisters look down on him since he isn't a fraternity brother. Tree pretends not to know her. He's not insulted.
* After the meeting, Tree works in the stockroom in the campus bookstore. A co-worker Keith asks her out. She says no. Using visual cues, Keith is set up to be vaguely creepy. (In the film, all the bookstore scenes were cut and Keith is a closeted gay.)
* Tree gets over to the hospital to see Butler. She gets a call from her dad but doesn't answer it.
* She runs into Lori by surprise, who is working a shift at the hospital for a friend. Lori knows of her affair with Butler. Tree says to her "none of your business".
* Tree meets up with Butler in his office. Butler puts his car keys in his desk drawer (remember this for later...). They kiss and talk. The door suddenly opens and they almost get caught by his wife Stephanie.
* At night, she gets ready for the frat party. Danielle enters. They talk about the party. There's a blackout. It's 9:23pm. Danielle leaves. On her desk, Tree notices a framed photograph of her between her proud mom and dad. She hides it in a drawer. (according to the script, it so she doesn't have to have feelings for them.)
There is a black envelope in her unopened mail, which she ignores.
* Tree heads off by herself to the frat party. She listens to a voicemail form her dad. He waited for an hour. Tree missed a birthday dinner with her dad but she doesn't make the frat party either. A mysterious character in a school mascot mask stabs her to death on her walk there.
We are on page 17.
As in the opening scene, Tree wakes up in Carter's dorm room wearing his t-shirt. Again, he's awake and treats her politely. She thinks (according to the script) the previous events were all a nightmare, but doesn't share this with Carter.
* She sees her dad has left a voicemail, gets dressed, leaves his room, forgetting her bracelet. She remembers a few things, like Carter's name and where he keeps the Tylenol, but forgets her bracelet.
* She walks across the quad to her sorority, where she sees many things repeated. One difference is she talks to Keith along the way. She asks and tells her the date (Tuesday the 18th). Keith was there the first time she walked thru the quad but she ignored him.
* In the house foyer, Tree has basically the same conversation with Danielle, but Tree (according to the script) has a sense of deja vu.
* Tree goes to her room and talks with her roommate Lori about the frat party that night. This time, Tree tells Lori what happened. Lori gives her a cupcake with a candle on it. This time, Tree leaves it there but doesn't toss it in the trash.
* Tree joins the other sorority sisters at the lunchtime meeting. Carter shows up but forgets to give her the bracelet until she reminds him.
* After the meeting, Tree works in the campus bookstore. She spots a mask display and picks up a mask just like her killer wore. She's freaked, drops it, and runs out. (In the script) Keith picks up the mask and puts it on.
* Tree gets over to the hospital to see Butler. She gets a call from her dad but doesn't answer it, same as before.
* She runs into Lori, who knows of her affair with Butler. They have almost the same conversation, but this time Tree says to her "I can't talk now".
* Tree meets up with Butler in his office. Tree locks the door before they kiss and talk. (Tree is more resistant to kissing and just wants to talk.) Stephanie almost catches them again but this time the door is locked.
* At night, she gets ready for the frat party. On her desk, Tree notices a framed photograph of her between her proud mom and dad. She hides it in a drawer. Danielle enters. (BTW, the first time, Tree hid the photo after Danielle left.) They talk about the party. There's a blackout (again). Danielle leaves.
* Tree heads off by herself to the frat party. She listens to a voicemail from her dad telling her Tree missed a birthday dinner with him. On the way there she's afraid of the part of the path where she was killed. She runs a different way and knocks on the frat house door. A masked individual opens the door and she punches him. It's Nick. Behind him is a "Happy Birthday" banner. She basically apologizes and the party gets going. Nick says Tree can "make it up to me later". Danielle is furious and storms off. Nick goes upstairs. Tree follows and finds him in a bedroom (presumably Nick's room). She enters and sees the mysterious character in the school mascot mask. She thinks he's Nick but then after he grabs her, she sees Nick dead in his closet. She screams but the music is too loud. They fight and Tree is killed by having her throat cut on window pane glass. (This scene was rewritten for the film. She is stabbed by a broken large glass bong.)
We are on page 36.
As in the opening scene, Tree wakes up in Carter's dorm room wearing his t-shirt. This time she says "This is a nightmare." Carter says she was the one who wanted to come here. She's starting to panic more.
* She sees her dad has left a voicemail, gets dressed, leaves his room, forgetting her bracelet and not getting any Tylenol.
* She hurries across the quad to her sorority, ignoring Keith.
* In the house foyer, Tree ignores Danielle, even though she tries starting a conversation.
* Tree goes to her room and talks with her roommate Lori, confessing to her that she's lived this day twice. Lori doesn't believe her. Tree tells Lori she's about to give her a cupcake and there's a surprise birthday party at the frat house. Lori tells Tree she should take the day off, talk to someone.
* Tree talks to Mary, a counselor at the campus health center. It's comical because the counselor mis-interprets Tree's descriptions, but ultimately gets Tree nowhere. She leaves frustrated.
* That night, Tree stays locked in her room. Danielle tries to talk but Tree won't open the door. Sure enough, at 9:23pm there's a blackout. She blocks the door with something (the script isn't specific; in the film it's a dresser).
* Tree disassembles her night stand and nails the wood panels over her windows.
* Tree finds the cupcake Lori left for her and is about to eat it when she decides to find the TV remote so she can change the channel away from MTV. She digs through stuff on her desk, not seeing the remote but finding the black envelope. It's a birthday card with the message "Hope it's your last one" scrawled inside.
* The TV turns itself off. She turns it back on. Now it's a rerun of The Twilight Zone. Then it turns itself off again.
* Tree hears a scraping noise from the closet. (According to the script, it dawns on Tree that she never checked the room before nailing the windows shut. How do we know this?) She grabs the hammer as a weapon and opens the closet. Nothing.
* She goes to the bathroom. Is someone hiding in the shower? Suddenly the TV blares loudly. She turns to the TV, seeing a boot sticking out from under the bed.
* She goes to the boot and sees it's not attached to anybody.
* The masked killer emerges from the shower and stabs her to death as she screams for help.
We are on page 49.
* Tree awakes in Carter's room screaming. She dresses in a panic, leaving quickly.
* The rush across the quad stresses out Tree so much that she has a panic attack and faints.
(In the film, Carter shows up in the quad and helps her, just as she's going to faint. They talk strategy in the cafeteria. This starts about on minute 40 of the film. In a sense, this scene is not in the script, but many scenes below were folded into it.)
* She wakes up in the hospital. The doctor wants her dad's phone number (the contact info she provided the university is old). He wants to know about her previous hospital stays. Tree tells him she's never been admitted to any hospital in her life. He says that's impossible, give the stab wounds she has on her body. Tree panics and tries to leave. He tells her they need to keep her there for observation.
They drug her, putting her to sleep.
* That night, she awakes as Butler shows up to visit her. She asks what day it is. He says Tuesday the 18th. He leaves to get her a coke from a machine down the hall.
* Tree escapes, rushing to Butler's office, stealing his car keys. She rushes for the stairwell. Butler spots her. Panicked, she runs from him, until she sees the killer has stabbed Butler to death.
* Tree races down the stairs to the parking garage. She screams for help but the garage is deserted, except for her and the killer.
* Tree gets to Butler's car before the killer and she escapes, speeding down the road out of the campus.
* She's pulled over by a policeman. She's happy to be jailed, because she knows she'll be save. She tells the police she's high and drunk. The policeman arrests her, cuffing her and is placing her in the back seat of his squad car when he and the back door are smashed into by a speeding car.
The script now has two death scenes. In the first: The killer chases her into the woods but, in the dark, Tree runs off a 200 foot cliff and dies on the rocks
below. In the second death scene in the script, the one that is filmed, she's burned to death in the squad car after the cop is killed.
We are on page 65.
* The opening scene is not repeated. Instead, the first scene in Tree's new day is in her Kappa Delta sorority house. She writes down a list of suspects in a notepad. These include Keith, Danielle, Stephanie.
* Tree spies on Keith through his bedroom window. (He lives in a dorm on the first floor.) She sees him asleep in Sponge Bob Squarepants PJs. (In the film, he'd watching a gay romance movie.) She crosses his name off her list.
* As she turns to leave, the masked killer stabs her to death.
We are on page 66.
Series of shots:
* Tree wakes up in Carter's room (the film is different here...)
* Tree in her bedroom dying her hair pink and cutting huge chunks off.
* Tree acts crazy at the lunchtime sorority meeting, eating - horror! - french fries.
* At night, Tree spies on Butler and wife Stephanie leaving their house. She crosses Stephanie's name off her list. They get into their car and drive away. The masked killer springs out and tackles Tree into a fishpond. She drowns.
Still on page 66.
* Tree wakes up (the script doesn't say if she's with her old hair or the pink hair) in Carter's room, vomiting fishpond water.
* Tree walks across the quad completely naked. She sees Keith and winks.
* That afternoon, Tree and Danielle are walking together when a black card falls out of Danielle's bag. Tree attacks Danielle, the fight spilling into the road. A bus runs over them both, killing them.
* Insert: Tree crosses Danielle off her list. (Of course, this makes no sense, since Tree's dead...)
We are on page 67.
* At night, Tree wears Army fatigues and face paint. She hides behind a tree on the quad with a baseball bat. Tree swings at a mysterious figure, knocking them out. It turns out to be a sorority sister Becky, sneaking donuts into the Kappa Delta house.
* Tree drops the bat and rushes to help her.
* The masked killer picks up the bat and kills Tree.
We are on page 68.
* Tree wakes up in Carter's room yet again. This time it's completely
different for two reasons. (1) She tells Carter how she's feeling
and what she thinks is happening to her, (2) Carter accepts her "crazy"
theory and follows her across campus trying to rationally think
through the clues together.
* They reason it must be someone who knows it's her birthday.
* Tree tells Carter about Butler. Carter tells her they never had sex.
He slept on the couch. (In the film, they eat at a diner and there
they
* They reach Tree's house. Carter says he got a credit card from his parents for emergencies. He'd use it to send her on a plane trip somewhere the killer wasn't then fly her back tomorrow. She's shocked at his generosity. (Skipped in film.)
* They head to the airport in Carter's VW. Tree tells Carter about her mom. Her birthday is on the same day as hers but she died of cancer three years earlier. (Skipped in film, but some of this dialogue was moved to another scene.)
* They are in a traffic jam and Tree sees on the side of the road the same cop that pulled her over earlier and was killed by the masked killer. She's afraid someone will die if she leaves and changes her mind. (This was skipped in the film.)
* They turn around and head back to campus. Tree tells Carter, "No more running." (Skipped in film. BTW, such a traffic jam scene could be way too expensive and complicated to shoot...)
* Tree runs into Danielle in the Kappa Delta foyer. They get into an argument. Tree agrees to leave the sorority. (Skipped in film.)
* Tree goes to her room and talks to Lori. She tells Tree Butler called and asked about her, since she didn't show for class. Lori leaves. (Skipped in film.)
* Tree is about to eat the cupcake Lori left for her when the power goes out. It's 9:23pm. When it comes back on she turns on the TV to watch the local news. (Yes, in this script the Local News runs at prime time.) It's a report of a murderer Joseph Tombs who's killed at least 6 women and been the subject of a nationwide manhunt for 5 months.
(In the film, Tree gets the information from the local news report in another scene, while eating with Carter.)
* Tree rushes to the hospital. She warns the nurses that Tombs will escape. Tree rushes to Tombs room, grabbing a fire axe on the way. She sees the police officer guarding Tombs enter his room. She runs down the hall and enters his room. The officer is dead. Tombs is holding the officer's gun. He shoots twice at Tree but the bullets ricochet off the axe blade, causing Tree to drop it.
* Tree bolts for the room and escapes the room. (Why didn't Tombs shoot her again?) Tree runs into a nurse who insists on looking into the room (where she heard gunshots, oh brother). Tombs of course shoots the nurse three times, dead. Tree runs. The killer chases her to a reception area, as he's about to shoot her, Carter tackles the killer from behind, causing the gun to be fired twice more before he drops it. Tree grabs the gun and shoots at the killer. Click.
* Tombs pulls out a hunting knife. (This too is a set-up and we learn later he got the knife from Lori. Stay tuned.) Tombs stabs and kills Carter to death with it.
* Tree turns and runs to the stairwell. These stairs only go up, to the bell tower. Tombs chases her up the stairs. Tree kicks him in the face, smashing part of his mask. (Before this, the script made no indication that a mask was worn. BTW, we learn later Tombs got the mask from Lori too)
* Tree makes it to the bell tower. By the time Tombs makes it up, he sees Tree on the railing, the bell rope tied around her neck. She tells Tombs, "See you tomorrow, asshole," and jumps to her death.
We are on page 87.
* She awakes in Carter's room again but this time she's go purpose, and she nice and thoughtful to everyone she meets.
* She shows up to her room and says nice things to Lori, promising to be a better roommate.
* She goes to class, but instead of going in, she asks Butler to speak with her outside in the hall. He does. She breaks up with him and tells he she's dropped the class.
* During the lunchtime sorority meeting, Tree is nice to everyone. Carter shows up. She asks him to take her out for dinner for her birthday.
* That afternoon, Tree's dad David waits for her alone. He's about to leave when Tree arrives. She confesses she wanted to avoid talking to him because it reminds him so much of her mom, who she misses terribly.
* In her room, she puts a long knife in her jeans and hides the handle with her shirt.
* She walks out of the hospital elevator on the same floor as Tombs. She goes up to the policeman guarding Tomb and tells him Tombs will escape tonight. The officer tells her to leave.
* She puts a knife to the officers throat and orders him to check on Tombs. He opens the door. Tombs looks asleep. Tree orders the officer to shoot Tombs in the head. Tombs opens his eyes. He's already escaped from his restraints. He stabs the officer with a knife, killing him, then grabs the mask he has at his bedside. Tree grabs the officer's gun and tries to shoot Tombs. "The safety's on little girl" Tombs says. He throws himself on Tree and starts to strangle her. She punches him in the nose with her palm, she squirms away but he simply throws her against the wall. Tombs gets his knife and smirks as he walks over to kill her. Tree smirks back. It's 9:23pm. Blackout. When the lights come back on, she's got the gun in her hand, safety off. She empties the clip into Tombs' chest.
* It's almost midnight. Carter and Tree are outside her house. They kiss goodnight.
* She goes to her room. Sees the cupcake from Lori, lights the candle on it. She blows it out and ... darkness.
This is page 101.
* Tree wakes up in Carter's room again.
* Tree rushes to her room, now realizing it was Lori all along. She would collude with Tombs most of the time but the last time Tree died it was because Lori poisoned the cupcake.
* They fight a brutal fight but Tree wins by kicking Lori out their 2nd story window.
(The film essentially ends here. There are two scene between Tree
and Carter showing they'll live happily ever after.)
* Tree took quite a beating and ends up in the hospital. Both Carter and her dad are there. The doctor orders her to complete rest, telling them to leave Tree alone.
* They all leave but Stephanie enters, in a nurses uniform. She poison's Tree's IV.
We are on page 110.
* Tree awakes in Carter's room. She realizes she's in love with him. They kiss. She says "What of I get stuck in this day forever?" Carter kisses her. She says "I guess I could live with that."
Review:
The script has one great thing going for it - concept. It's a wonderful story idea centered around a compelling character. The protagonist's problem is that she keeps dying every day, at the hands of some unknown killer, and her world is reset each morning. The execution of the script is well-done. One draw-back is that its action lines contain a lot of un-filmable moments, such as describing what Tree is thinking. With one exception (described later), the script stays within the main story rule (i.e., after each death, everything is reset, except for Tree's memories).
The film has two great things going for it. A great concept for a story and a terrific, engaging actor (Jessica Rothe) playing the lead. The central theme seems to be to connect with family and friends on an emotional level, not to try to solve your emotional problems by yourself. The direction (Chistopher Landon) is also strong, having added some details and made some tweeks to the dialog which helped the story and also improved the character development. Some minor scenes were cut, others re-arranged or even inserted (such as a few extra scenes with the excellent Israel Broussard as Carter). Camera work (and lighting) is also top-notch.
A feature common to such horror films is that the victim (the protagonist Tree in this case) often has a character flaw or sin that we attribute the origin of the "monster" (the masked killer - either Lori or Tombs). In this case, Tree's character flaw is two-fold (a) she's emotionally distant, even mean, to everyone, caused by burying her sadness over her mom's death (who shares the same birthday with Tree), (b) she's having an affair with a married man. When Tree realized the issue with processing her mom's passing she breaks up with her lover, re-connects with her widowed father, and tries to be nicer to people, even to her roommate Lori. It's when she's trying to apologize to Lori that she realized what turns out to be the key
fact that will solve her problem: that Lori's to blame. When Tree kills Lori, and we get a feeling that Tree has overcome her character weaknesses in the process of solving her problem.
Two things take me out of the story. One is my fault, the other is the script and director's.
(1) My first confusion is the confluence of the scene starting in the film on minute 41 with that starting on minute 59. In the first scene, Tree and Carter are eliminating suspects who are killing Tree time after time, and in the second scene Carter is talking like it's just a nightmare that Tree is having. The first scene has effectively established that it's not a nightmare, so they don't seem to make sense together. However, they really do. They are from different days. Remember Tree's world: every new day, everything resets (memories and so on) except for her. So this is actually quite logical. Carter has reset, so can't connect the two seemingly inconsistent scenes.
(2) My second point of confusion is when the script and film both violate this rule (in Tree's world, each new day, everything resets, except for Tree's memories). When Tree fights Lori at the end of the film, Tree says
TREE
... It was poisoned. But I never ate it before.
...
So you had to find another way.
So Lori is not reseting like the others!
TREE
Then Tombs fell right into your lap...
You knew he’d wake up and escape.
Then they’d just assume he killed me.
... You’ve killed me before.
LORI
Then I guess I’ll just have to do it again.
What's the old saying, "Hind-sight is always 20-20"? This flub aside, the film (and script) are great fun and highly recommended examples of the comedy-horror genre. Studying them both and also making note of all the changes made in filming really helped me understand the process of bringing this story more effectively to the big screen.
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