Totally Killer: Movie Review

Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Julie Bowen, Randall Park
Director: Nahnatchka Khan

Mixing Happy Death Day, Back to the Future and Hallowe'en, Totally Killer's tonal mash up of genres provides limited returns for a great premise.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's Shipka plays Jamie, who lives in the US mid-west town of Vernon, a place that's known only for the murder of three teenagers over a string of nights some 30plus years ago.

When the killer seemingly strikes again decades after, Jamie finds herself transported back to Vernon in the 80s and with a chance to stop history repeating itself once and for all.

It doesn't take much to realise Totally Killer is aiming for the comedy awareness horror jugular, but in large parts, much of Shipka's delivery of 21st century barbs against the inappropriateness of the era is delivered flatly and barely registers as either original or particularly smart.

This is a disappointment because as a heroine in proceedings, Shipka's an eminently watchable presence that helps propel some of the Mean Girls clique attitudes and flippancies out of the entirely predictable.

With its "Save the mom, save the world" ethos reminiscent of sci-fi show Heroes' Save The Cheerleader, Save The World mantra, Totally Killer's problems come because of a lack of real originality or a personality all of its own.

"I hate time travel movies - they never make sense," one character intones early on, and while Totally Killer wants to play both with and in the genre, its writers aren't quite savvy enough to snare the kind of meta touches that made a movie like Scream work so well.

But Totally Killer is not without its charms.

Aimed probably more at Shipka's audience than hardcore horror fanatics, and with a total commitment to its 80s aesthetics, this is more schlock than shock, and plays reasonably fast and loose over its 100 minute run time.

It doesn't quite make the case for another outing, and its desire to mock easy targets make it seem less than it should be - but for a more fun way to celebrate Hallowe'en, Totally Killer takes a stab in the sort-of right direction.