"Totally Killer" is a clever, quick-witted, totally fun time-travel slasher

Totally Killer (2023)

"'Back to the Future meets 'Scream’" is a fitting comp for “Totally Killer,” a time-traveling slasher romp that rightfully name-drops those films but also has a good spirit all its own. Director Nahnatchka Khan (who previously made the irresistible 2019 Ali Wong-Randall Park romantic comedy “Always Be My Maybe”) doesn’t always nail the balance between the violent slashes and the broader, sometimes-parodic comedy, but for a genre mash-up, this one is quick-witted, sassy, sweet, and just plain fun. “Totally Killer” even shares enough DNA with “The Final Girls,” “Happy Death Day 2U,” and “Freaky” that a perfect slumber-party movie marathon just curates itself. 

Kiernan Shipka plays 16-year-old Jamie Hughes, who’s tired of being overprotected by her parents Pam (Julie Bowen) and Blake (Lochlyn Munro), especially Pam. But since Pam’s three friends were each stabbed sixteen times to death by a masked killer dubbed the “Sweet Sixteen Killer” thirty-five years ago, it’s understandable. On Halloween night in the town of Vernon, the killer is back. As soon as Jamie becomes the next target, she hides in a vintage photo booth, also the time machine her brainy best friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema) made for the science fair (just go with it!), and gets flung back to 1987. There, she tries meshing in with the kids of the ‘80s but also comes to find out her mom (played by a very funny Olivia Holt) is a mean girl in a clique, The Mollys, who all dress like different Molly Ringwald characters. Can Jamie convince her mom and her three friends that they’re about to become victims?

Even with stabbings and throat slashings, “Totally Killer” remains poppy and charming. Writers David Matalon & Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo run with this clever conceit, leaving one in disbelief that it hasn’t been copied numerous times in horror-comedy form before. The whodunit aspect works just fine but isn’t nearly as important as the emotional stakes set up between Jamie and the teen version of her mom. The film also successfully mines the clash of the two eras for fish-out-of-water humor. Being brought as a Gen Z-er, Jamie faces the political incorrectness of the ‘80s, including problematic male behavior and some very loose school rules. Even the payoff to a joke involving one of the Mollys, flighty blowjob-lover Marisa (Stephi Chin-Salvo), and a rape alarm is well-timed and pretty hilarious. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: B

Blumhouse and Amazon Studios released "Totally Killer" (103 min.) on Prime Video on October 6, 2023.