By Giulia Campora
Staff Writer
Warning: Review contains spoilers.
“Back To The Future” meets “Scream” in the slasher-inspired “Totally Killer.”
This movie is a fantastic comedy as shown by its cheeky one-liners combined with a time-travel sci-fi concept. All elements of a good-ol’ slasher are present: a group of teenagers trying to find a culprit within each other, the killer killing innocent people for a non-convincing reason, a news broadcasting for the incidents, etc., but those horror traits are seen as the weakest part of the movie itself.
That’s because of the amazing performance made by the main actress, Kiernan Shipka, who has her quirky and fun dialogue to entertain the viewers. In this movie, Shipka’s character has to evolve from a cliché-like teen to a whimsical investigator, which she pulls off amazingly.
The movie begins on Halloween night in 2023, as Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka) is about to go out and celebrate the spookiest night of the year. Her suffocating mother, Pam (Julie Bowen), whom she defines as “overprotective” is overwhelmingly concerned about her daughter’s safety.
That is because, 35 years ago, around the same time of the year, three teenage girls (who were Pam’s friends) were tortured and killed. These “Sweet Sixteen Killings” have since haunted the town’s reputation every Halloween.
But then Jamie gets transported back to 1987 (begrudgingly) in a time machine, making her realize she can stop the murders and fix the town’s horrific history all along. Or maybe not. It’s a bit of a difficult mission to make everyone believe she has come from the future to protect them from what is about to happen. That’s one of the running gags in the movie, which was very cliché but made me laugh, nonetheless.
“Totally Killer” is an 80s lover's paradise, as the viewer can hear famous songs such as Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.”
After Jamie has assimilated enough knowledge of the 80s culture, her next task is to befriend the soon-to-be victims as well as the teenage version of her mom (Olivia Holt), who she shockingly finds out to be the school’s popular yet mean girl.
The character is cliché, but Holt does a superb job as young Pam, nailing the cruelty of her character, making her performance so fantastic.
An honorable mention goes to Charles Gillespie, who plays young Jamie’s dad. His charming self gives the movie a glimpse of the character’s past which makes it very interesting. As the movie goes on, Jamie tries every single way to make the high schoolers understand they are in danger, but like every single horror movie before this, they don’t.
“Totally Killer” includes a few flashbacks and flashforwards to make viewers understand what happens between 1987 and the present. Even if I hate these storytelling moments, they make the movie flow quite easily. It also elicits nostalgia of the 80s, which brings older viewers back to sorrowful memories of a different, yet more peaceful, time.
But as the clock ticks faster, Jamie finds herself with a killer still on the loose, and very little time to stop him. As a huge true crime fan, the killings are slacking and sloppy, definitely recycled from a gore-horror movie, making them very disinteresting. The identity and motive of the murderer do not make the viewers relate to him but to the courageous Jamie instead, as she saves the day, and many decades to come. But for its 1 hour and 45 minutes, it was a good way to begin the Halloween season.
The movie is available to stream on Prime Video now.
