Slasher mash-ups (or ‘slash-ups’, as nobody is yet coining them) have proved fertile ground for Blumhouse. The horror production company has already delivered masked-killer fun in horror-comedies like Happy Death Day (Groundhog Day with murders), its sequel Happy Death Day 2U (Back To The Future Part II with murders), and the body-swapping Freaky (Freaky Friday with… you get it). Now, it delivers another twist of the knife in Totally Killer — a bouncy, bloody, bodaciously ’80s slasher comedy that openly riffs on Back To The Future. Y’know, with murders.
It begins in the present, with teenager Jamie (Kiernan Shipka, of Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, just about convincing as a high-schooler in an ’80s teen movie kind of way) desperate to have some Halloween fun, sick of the overbearing rules of her mum Pam (Modern Family’s Julie Bowen). Except, there’s a reason Pam’s so uptight — as a teenager, her friends were the victims of the Sweet Sixteen Killer, who murdered three schoolgirls back in 1987. When the killer strikes again in 2023, Jamie finds herself targeted; a brush with death leaves her stumbling into genius friend Amelia’s (Kelcey Mawema) photobooth time machine (just go with it), sending her hurtling back to 1987. There, in true BTTF style, she meets her future parents and has to keep them alive amid the murder-spree — but she also has a chance to solve, or even avert, the original killings.
Primarily a comedy, and a funny one at that, but still brings the pain when shifting into horror mode.
It's a strong set-up, and director Nahnatchka Khan displays a strong knowledge of both knife-wielding-stalker flicks and temporal twists and turns — the kind of genre know-how that informed her charming 2019 Netflix romcom Always Be My Maybe. Whether or not the time-travel mechanics actually check out barely matters. (“I saw Endgame,” says Jamie, the fourth Avengers outing finally getting referenced for its particular timeline-preserving model, “but I didn’t really understand it.”) Rather, the focus here is on delivering stab-happy fun, not just pointing out the difference between Gen X and Gen Z childhoods (Jamie is shocked by ’80s gym clothes, racially insensitive sports logos, and a lax approach to data protection), but having Jamie’s actions in the past directly affect how the future will play out. Thus, though she travels back armed with a true-crime podcast series detailing the OG killings, her interference soon sends events off the beaten path.
The results are a little lightweight, not quite meeting the gleeful energy of the Happy Death Day films, or the gory carnage of Freaky. But while Totally Killer is primarily a comedy, and a funny one at that — delivered in a poppy, colourful teen-movie palette — it still brings the pain when shifting into horror mode, not holding back on the body count as the Sweet Sixteen killings unfold anew.
Ultimately, Totally Killer is summed up by its own final reel — a fairground ride face-off, with plenty of energy and some neat tricks up its sleeve, moving so fast that you don’t really have time to think about any of it for too long. As a sweet-and-sour Halloween offering, put this one down as a treat. And if Blumhouse wants to try a full-on Back To The Future Part III Western with murders next? Count us in.