Totally Killer
“Totally Killer” is a Halloween homage to “Back to the Future” that’s also smart enough to know its roots and wink at them mashing up two genres for some fish out of water laughs while making, if not perfect sense, then as much sense as any time travel sci-fi does. If anything suffers in this horror comedy, it’s the horror part, but “Totally Killer” is nimble enough to keep us watching anyway.
Most of that is thanks to star Kiernan Shipka, who has an instinct for zippy dialogue and the dramatic range to make even the wobbliest tonal shifts work. The script by David Matalon & Sasha Perl Raver, and Jen D’Angelo requires her (and allows her) to be a surly teen, a grief-stricken daughter and an intrepid investigator in one night which she pulls off with aplomb.
That night is Halloween 2023: Jamie Hughes (Shipka) is getting ready to go out with her friends when she accidentally gets sent back in time specifically, 1987 and realizes she can stop these murders from happening.
Or so she thinks. One of the ongoing jokes of “Totally Killer,” directed by Nahnatchka Khan (“Always Be My Maybe,” “Fresh Off the Boat”) is that no one believes Jamie when she tries to warn them including the town’s amusingly useless sheriff (Khan’s frequent scene-stealer Randall Park). The culture-shock moments are easy: casual misogyny, constant smoking. But they’re specific enough observations that it doesn’t feel like a predictable joke of: “The ’80s, amirite?” As for music cues: “Totally Killer” offers some deep cuts you don’t usually hear from movies set in this era Bananarama’s “Venus,” Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon,” “Let the Music Play” by Shannon.
Jamie also has to get close to the would be victims including the high school mean girl ringleader who, she’s startled to learn, was her mom’s (Julie Bowen) best friend. Olivia Holt is perfectly cast as young Pam, not only because she resembles Bowen so much but also because she’s got the comedy and cruelty chops required of this character down pat. Big hair and Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers aplenty here as Jamie tries to explain what will happen to these people, if they don’t listen to her based on horror-movie tropes. And they don’t.
“Totally Killer” makes a couple of inspired choices in storytelling. One is that it actually flashes back to its future, letting us see where we are in present day while Jamie is stuck in 1987 (though a murder podcast subplot feels underthought-out). The other is that it takes an unvarnished look at small town insularity and how peaking in high school can keep you trapped there these characters know everything about each other because they’ve been right up one another’s orbits forever. Shipka’s deadpan astonishment cuts through the false nostalgia for a simpler-superior ‘80s like butter.
Moreover, there’s no time for that there’s a murderer loose and Jamie has to prevent him. This is the part of “Totally Killer” that is least engaging because the slasher scenes aren’t staged, shot or cut with much finesse. For example, the stabbing in a waterbed is sloppy in every way. But the identity and motive of the killer are never as interesting as the resourceful final girl who saves both the day and the decade.
For More Movies Visit Putlocker.