It’s October and everyone is trying to watch as many horror movies as possible. I watch horror movies year round so this month isn’t any different from another. I chose to do something different, but not that different because it’s still watching movies, or the same movie everyday. I chose to watch the movie Groundhog Day everyday this month, and although I didn’t start watching it until October 2^nd, and I’m only watching it for the fourth time right now, after this I’m done. Groundhog Day is my favorite Bill Murray movie and I’ve already seen it close to 30 times anyway.

That doesn’t matter. I just want to talk about the movie Groundhog Day. If you have never seen the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray then I assume that you’re not reading this. Everyone knows that it’s about Bill Murray being an asshole news reporter doing an on location story about the famous weather forecasting groundhog Punxsutawney Phil in the western Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney on February 2^nd, Groundhog Day. While in Punxsutawney Bill Murray’s character, also named Phil, angers his cameraman Larry who happens to practice witchcraft offscreen, and Larry performs a ritual in his hotel room that night that curses Phil to live the exact same day over and over until he finally changes his attitude to become a good enough person to move forward in life. It sounds like a really touching and somewhat uplifting movie, and it is. But I want to touch on the darker side of living the same day over and over, what such a thing would do to a person’s psyche.

According to research and an interview with Harold Ramis, Phil lived the same Groundhog Day back to back for roughly 8 years. Think about that. Think about who you were and where you were in life 8 years ago in comparison to who and where you are now. It’s two different worlds isn’t it? Now think about if everyday of the past 8 years had been the same day over and over with no ability to escape. There would be no avoiding insanity. The movie shows a montage of some of the darker days where Phil commits suicide everyday only to instantly awake in his bed at 6:00AM to the song “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher playing on the radio alarm clock that he had smashed to pieces before leaving his room to commit suicide an hour earlier. According to psychology, a person will try to change their environment using increasingly drastic methods before they ultimately commit suicide. Some resort to drugs and alcohol, some resort to abusing others, and some watch anime and shitpost with quotes and infographics on Facebook. So I know that Phil did some horrible things before the suicide montage and the movie skips over that entire experience for the sake of maintaining a PG rating.

What I’m trying to say is that Bill Murray’s character literally raped and murdered thousands of people. Groundhog Day is labeled as a comedic romance but it really is a horror movie. It’s set up right away that there is no hot water in the bed and breakfast that he’s staying at, and it shows that every morning he is unable to take a hot shower. I’m sure that there was a year or two where he adjusted and took cold showers, but there was also the 3 to 4 years where he stalked a person or an entire family to learn their habits, and then broke into their homes and brutally murdered them just so he could take a hot shower in their bathroom. I’m sure he spent 6 months learning how to properly field dress a deer as well as sew a tuxedo so he could murder the entire Punxsutawney high school cheerleader team in the locker room and after taking a hot shower in the girls’ locker room, he skinned several of the bodies to make a girl suit. And then he did a cheerleader dance outside in the snow wearing his gruesome bloody girl suit and waving pom-poms surrounded by the entire Punxsutawney police department pointing their guns at him pleading with him to get on the ground and put his hands behind his head, and then he raised one pom-pom towards the sheriff and died in a hail of bullets. Then he instantly wakes up to Sonny and Cher playing on the radio. And yeah, I left out all the creepy sexual stuff that would have happened too.

For 3 to 4 years Phil devolved into the most evil human being on Earth and nobody saw the change happen. Nobody could have stopped it from happening. It’s shown that he gets drunk and runs from the cops with the other 2 drunk guys, you know the whole “is it too early for flapjacks?” part. Then after getting arrested he wakes up in his bed, getting off scot-free. You know that it didn’t end there. You know that Phil pushed the boundaries of being able to commit any and every crime imaginable and unimaginable and be able to get away with it. Phil isn’t a psychopath either so you know that doing that shit ate at his mind for years before he was able to pull himself together to become the person he wanted to be. You know the lady that taught him how to play the piano? How many times do you think he raped and murdered that woman while learning to play the piano? How many times did he have a vile sexual orgy with the dead bodies of the piano lady and her cats and then played one of those nocturne songs by Chopin in the nude wearing nothing but their blood and cat skins?

And you know he turned to religion and witchcraft to escape his fate. He didn’t just accept the fact that he was doomed to live the same day for eternity and said, “welp, guess I’ll learn some dancing, and ice sculpting, and piano and then I’ll be happy”. No, he turned to Satan. The old guy begging for money on the corner that dies, he dug up his body every night for 2 months in a row, performing Satanic rituals to resurrect him. He murdered the living shit out of Ned Ryerson so many times that killing Ned alone would give Phil the highest serial killer body count in human history. Phil killed thousands of people and then had to talk to those same people again less than 24 hours later. Phil devolved into an absolute madman before trying to better himself, and the movie completely skips over that part. And I think that it’s the most important part of the story, but we don’t get to see it.