Horror Short Review: Happy Birthday (2021)

A lesson about aging gracefully and accepting that you can’t halt time’s cruel touch. Happy Birthday was directed/edited by Aaron Fradkin and stars Victoria Fratz.

She plays a woman who has reached another birthday and isn’t loving how she looks in the mirror. She’s getting older and it seems to bother her as she studies every wrinkle, crow’s feet and blemish.

Alone at home, it is something of a surprise for her to find a cake with a lit candle and a card on the living room table.

Checking out the card, the rhyme inside mocks her aging and suggest that she can make a wish that will come true. Simply blow out the candle and eat a bit of the cake, which she does. A simple finger scoop that she enjoys. Even more so when she sees herself in the mirror and notices her skin has improved.

That convinces her to devour the cake in gluttonous fashion. Completely unperturbed by how it ended up there. It doesn’t matter, as every time she looks in the mirror, she sees herself young, fresh-faced and youthful. Is she really though?

A sinister and twisted short, this is all about the payoff and it nails it. The visual look of what happens is great, the sounds of the woman greedily eating the cake is an impactful touch and the feeling of gleeful atmospheric evil in the room is strong.

Thoroughly enjoyable, it’s one well worth watching even if they spoil their own reveal in the bloody thumbnail. Check it out yourself below.