As someone who crams in as many spooky films as possible every October, I have a great appreciation for horror movies that aren't actually scary at all. Sometimes I need a break from being terrified! With that in mind, Totally Killer is a welcome treat in this year's Halloween haul: a slasher that spills blood with gleeful cheekiness, self-referentially playing within the confines of the form without taking itself seriously in the slightest.
Totally Killer borrows heavily from a number of other films, which are directly name-dropped: the masked serial killer targeting teen girls is pure Halloween, the cruel popular girls are straight outta Mean Girls, and the time-travelling plot is drawn from Back to the Future. The way Totally Killer playfully riffs with a meta sense of humour is pure Scream — which is yet another film that the characters name-drop. Directed by Always Be My Maybe's Nahnatchka Khan, it carries that prior flick's sense of fun.
Totally Killer concerns the Sweet 16 Murders — a killing spree that claimed the lives of three teenage girls in 1987 in the town of Vernon (a barely-disguised East Vancouver, with scenes prominently shot at Playland and Templeton Secondary School). Current-day teen Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka) travels back to the past after the perpetrator reemerges and kills her mom (Julie Bowen), leading Jamie to try to stop the crimes from ever happening.
After meeting a number of adult characters in the first part of the film, much of the fun of Totally Killer comes from meeting their teenage selves and seeing how they fit within the classic social structure of an '80s teen comedy, with its bullies, jocks and nerds. Jamie repeatedly marvels at how problematic the '80s were, with its racist sports mascots and casual misogyny, cleverly highlighting the culture clash that continues to play out between generations today without being overly didactic.
Similar in tone to Happy Death Day or Freaky, Totally Killer is a wacky, fantastical take on the slasher genre, more comedy than horror. For the horror curious, it's a nice way to dabble in the tradition of spooky season without giving anyone nightmares.
(Prime Video)Totally Killer borrows heavily from a number of other films, which are directly name-dropped: the masked serial killer targeting teen girls is pure Halloween, the cruel popular girls are straight outta Mean Girls, and the time-travelling plot is drawn from Back to the Future. The way Totally Killer playfully riffs with a meta sense of humour is pure Scream — which is yet another film that the characters name-drop. Directed by Always Be My Maybe's Nahnatchka Khan, it carries that prior flick's sense of fun.
Totally Killer concerns the Sweet 16 Murders — a killing spree that claimed the lives of three teenage girls in 1987 in the town of Vernon (a barely-disguised East Vancouver, with scenes prominently shot at Playland and Templeton Secondary School). Current-day teen Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka) travels back to the past after the perpetrator reemerges and kills her mom (Julie Bowen), leading Jamie to try to stop the crimes from ever happening.
After meeting a number of adult characters in the first part of the film, much of the fun of Totally Killer comes from meeting their teenage selves and seeing how they fit within the classic social structure of an '80s teen comedy, with its bullies, jocks and nerds. Jamie repeatedly marvels at how problematic the '80s were, with its racist sports mascots and casual misogyny, cleverly highlighting the culture clash that continues to play out between generations today without being overly didactic.
Similar in tone to Happy Death Day or Freaky, Totally Killer is a wacky, fantastical take on the slasher genre, more comedy than horror. For the horror curious, it's a nice way to dabble in the tradition of spooky season without giving anyone nightmares.