Today been a very slow saturday after a holiday I had some time "kill" at work so decided to look into some of the movies I have had on my bucket list, trying to spice things up I pick one random and decided to finish it no matter how bad it could be, I was right about it was not going to be a movie that I would probably watch again although it was not so bad. Totally Killer movie horror, humor and time travel. I was expecting the movie to be a lot funnier, it isn't easy to do horror comedy and the movie felt flat on many of the attempts to be funny, on top it felt like the movie had an agenda to push a message and that why it probably did not perform so well with a 6.5 on IMDB. Kieran Shipka couldn't save this movie had some good moments and not all jokes were bad but I think this had much more potential with a none so common combination of horror slasher with time travel, its clear the movie had inspirations from others like Back to The Future, Scream and even some American Psycho but was probably too much to combine and make it great.
SourceTotally Killer is a very teenager like movie with the main character Jamie Hughes, role played by Kiernan Shipka who looks lovely, who to a certain point reminds me of Buffy back in the day but less bad ass, a typical teenager with an overprotective mother but her mother Pam had her own reasons to be so paranoiac since she survived a killing spree back in 1987 when three of her friends were murdered by a man who they called Sweet Sixteen Killer. Recently I saw Heart Eyes (2025) and this two movies have that horror slasher and comedy aspect in it, plus both killers had their names based on how or who they kill their victims. The killer from back then was never caught so it was just obvious Pam would constantly worry for her daughter Jamie. Comes Halloween and Jamie is a teenager and as any other she just want to go out and have some fun and she been so luck the killer comes back after 35 years and took down Pam, its that kind of moment where the killer goes silent for a long time but still keeps that list of targets, Pam was able to survive the first attempt but the killer came back to finish the job. The combination of Halloween and the killer coming back many years after to finish the job is an interesting and uncommon part of the story that made me wonder first if Pam was the only one still on his list of targets.
Source
For the most part of the movie Kiernan carry the movie on her shoulders and she does a solid job with the script that she is given, the movie doesn't necessarily look cheap and production felt ok for what it is, from the first part of the movie been just a regular teenager who just want to have fun to a grief daughter traveling back in time as a detective to figure out who this killer is and stop him before everything starts, but we all know how time "works" on this movies, its almost impossible to nail changes that make things right without screwing up something else.
The time travel aspect of the movie is one of the most ridiculous one but I guess this was expected looking at the combination of themes going around the movie, there have been worst but the so called time machine was a school project of her friend Amelia that came in handy based on the events, how convenient a teenager creates a time machine on purpose solving time travel hhhmmm. Everything goes south when Jamie also gets attack by the "Sweet Sixteen Killer" on Halloween night, the moment I saw this it immediately clicks and I thought "nah that's cap", saw it coming and it was not the original killer, it was an imposter but this event trigger another set of situations, specially when Jamie looks for hiding on the "time machine" and goes back in time to 1987 the year the original killer went after her mother and friends.
Source
I went into Totally Killer expecting something similar to Hear Eyes, I never had like really high expectations, I'm a fan of slasher movies but I already know that when you mix comedy with it, usually tend to tame down the horror aspect of the movie as it doesn't makes much emphasis on horror and some times the comedy just interrupts the scares, same goes for the time travel aspect of it taking way more time from the horror side of the movie so I was never thinking this was going to scare the sht out of me, specially when you look at the cover with all those vibrant colors, it screams teenager drama. The movie does a decent job with the 80s vibe, it also avoid in a way going over the top with costume, there are a lot of references to the 80s on the movie, I felt certain connection to it been born in the 80s but as I mention before I prefer if the movie leaned harder into the horror or fully committed to being a comedy rather to walk between the lines of the two genres.
In my opinion this is a cool movie to watch for anyone born in the 80s since there is so much nostalgia in it, for sure a movie that is not trying to reinvent the wheel and does provide certain level of entertainment for either slasher or time travel comedy fans. Its a cool one time watch that I would not want to put on my Blue Ray collection but I could watch anytime it pops up on a streaming platform and want to kill some time, Shipka and Holt do a great job on their roles, daughter and mother during their teens who carry the movie very well been funny and a bit dramatic too. If you go into the movie with moderate expectations you might have a good time, probably if I had pay for this movie at the cinema would be mad, only make sense to watch it on Halloween as a very niche specific movie with enough to make you laugh, but that might be just me been too soft on my score with a 6.5/10 when some people might find it worst and asking too much out of it, I wouldn't recommend it before properly setting the expectations.
