TOTALLY KILLER REVIEW

Around the Halloween of 1987, in a small American town called Vernon, a terrifying killing spree targeting popular girls from high school totally traumatized the little community, the killer ended up slaughtering three 16-year-old girls, never got caught and became known as the legendary Sweet Sixteen killer.

The movie could also be reframed as a Gen Z vs Gen X battle, between old school and the modern wokeness.  The film is more of a comedy that bends sci-fi, teen comedy and horror together, ending up making the horror elements and slasher mystery somewhat lesser than most entries in that genre.  It is still bloody but die-hard horror fans might be disappointed in that respect, despite it being a Blumhouse production, which usually serves their horror efforts slightly creepier and more FX heavy.  That being said, it is a lot of fun to watch and it is well served by the main protagonist Jamie (Kiernan Shipka of Sabrina fame), somehow pulling really well that she is 17 years old despite being 24 and displaying an amazingly deadpan sense of humour.

Julie Bowen plays Pam, Jamie's overprotective mother and sole survivor of her group of friends from high school, the Mollies, named as such because of their obsession with the actress Molly Ringwald from the Breakfast Club, an icon of the eighties.  The anniversary of the Sweet Sixteen murders is coming up, and podcasts and guided tours abound, all trying to profit from the gruesome deaths years ago.  And because of those deaths, Pam is extremely sensitive to the security of her only child, showering her with warnings, until Jamie snaps: "It's not 1987 anymore," she scoffs. After all, her parents can track her phone, and she's armed with everything from pepper spray to a rape whistle. What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out the Sweet Sixteen killer is back, claiming a fourth victim and fiercely decided to see Jamie next on his hunting board...

Trying to avoid being sliced to pieces by her new masked enemy, Jamie accidentally winds up in 1987 thanks to her best friend Amelia's (Kelcey Mawema) time-travel machine, which is her science project - and feels like a nod to the 1985 fun and inventive teenage time travel B-Movie My Science project, starring John Stockwell and Dennis Hopper.  Thanks to barely coherent quantum mechanics charabia and a photo booth, Jamie finds herself days away from the Sweet 16 Killer's original murders and starts looking for her teenage mother, played by Olivia Holt (who looks quite convincingly like a young Julie Bowen!), to try and prevent the eventual murders...

Jamie discovers with shock that the sweet mother she knows in her time was actually one of the most popular girls in school, but quite a mean one too, a literal nightmare in shoulder pads and spray net, who bluntly tells Jamie to "fuck off and die", after she nearly breaks hernose during a particularly intense game of dodgeball, which nearly traumatizes Jamie, unused to games that physical in the twenty first century...

Actually, Jamie being a fish out of water, is a big part of the humour, contrasting modern ideas and ideologies with the way things were back then, such as racist sport mascots, questionable clothing choices and hairdos, the notion of consent and quite a few more constrasting jabs.  Shipka manages to sell her modern outrage every time, to hilarious results, despite the divide between the two philosophies being as wide as the Grand Canyon.

The movie did not bother too hard with the logics of time travel, yet somehow made it a more interesting prospect than the jumbled mess presented in Marvel's Endgame...  The movie just makes the entire time travel concept work strictly for its plot, warts and all, and uses several meta commentaries to actually make fun of them, constantly winking at the silliness of it all.  For example, a cop Jamie was trying to convince that murders would be happening soon in the future, and disclosing she is a time traveller in the process, definitely not helping her cause, led to a:  "I hate time-travel movies," quip by the police officer (Randall Park).  "They never make any sense."

Totally Killer is a goofy mix of classic slashers, high school comedy and zany time travel, mixed in with a funny juxtaposition of a modern view of the world and the world as it was about thirty five years ago. 

Definitely a fun evening, well cast, and with a script that knows its premise is so out there, it makes fun of itself throughout.  A little Halloween gem, with something for almost all the generations.  Highly recommended.

Totally Killer.  Blumhouse Television.  Directed by Nahnatchka Khan,  Starring Kiernan Shipka & Olivia Holt.  Available on Amazon Prime.