Totally Killer Review: Prime Video Film That Takes Us Straight Back to the 80s
Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Julie Bowen, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Liana Liberato, Kelcey Mawema, Stephi Chin-Salvo, Anna Diaz, Ella Choi
Director: Nahnatchka Khan
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The film Totally Killer by Amazon Studios is one of the latest additions to the Prime Video catalog for this October 2023 just in time for Halloween. Totally Killer is a black comedy set on All Saints’ Eve among pumpkins, decorations, tricks, and tricks. But also seasoned with a ruthless serial killer who adds a slasher touch to this title. Available on the streaming platform from October 6, 2023, Totally Killer stars actress Kiernan Shipka, previously appreciated in another horror/fantasy role in the Netflix TV series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. In the film Totally Killer, the producers also include the Blumhouse company, known to the public for its horror films including the trilogy/sequel to the 1978 film Halloween and the latest title released at the cinema The Exorcist: Believer. The 106-minute film Totally Killer premiered on September 28, 2023, during the Fantastic Fest event. In addition to Kiernan Shipka, the cast of Totally Killer includes, among others: Olivia Holt, Julie Bowen, Jonathan Potts, Charlie Gillespie, Liana Liberato, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, and Kelcey Mawema.
Branded Blumhouse and just arrived on Prime Video, Totally Killer is the right horror comedy with which to open the Spooky Season: a story made of quotations, fun, and the right dose of violence (enough to earn the nickname horror) capable of captivating both thrill-seekers and those who don’t usually approach this genre. As we will see in this review of Totally Killer to describe the film directed by Nahnatchka Khan it is enough to start from all the titles that inspired it: starting from Back to the Future with time travel to Halloween and Scream, without forgetting the saga of Happy Birthday. In short, a rich mix of titles that give life to an interesting and – unexpectedly, given the quantity of sources of inspiration – unique work of its kind.
Totally Killer Review: The Story Plot
The town of Vernon was marked, in 1987, by three cruel murders, three young and beautiful high school students were brutally massacred a few days apart from each other. Thirty-five years later, the memory of their deaths is still kept alive by the inhabitants of the small town, in particular by Chris Debusage (Jonathan Potts), a podcaster who has dedicated his entire life to the case, and by Pam (Julie Bowen), that when she was a teenager, she was part of the same group of friends. The trauma of the murders pushed her to always watch her back, waiting for the moment when she too would have to clash with the mysterious killer. Pam’s daughter, Jamie (Kiernan Shipka), resents her mother’s overprotectiveness, which forces her to take self-defense lessons and keep guns scattered throughout her house.
Jamie is destroyed by grief – and by guilt for never having believed in her mother’s “paranoia” – and only the company of her best friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema), a brilliant budding inventor, manages to cheer her up. However, when the killer seems to be targeting her, things take a decidedly science fiction turn chased by the masked murderer and accidentally ending up in the prototype of a homemade time machine built by Amelia, Jamie finds herself in 1987, when her mother and her friends were still teenagers. The girl then tries what all of us would have done in her place: try to find the killer and save Pam as a teenager, to save Pam of the future. It certainly won’t be an easy mission, also because of her mother and all her peers (her father).
The story of the film Totally Killer is set in the town of Vernon. A quiet town that thirty-five years earlier was shocked by the murder of three high school students at the hands of a murderer renamed the Sixteen-Year-Old Killer. In the current present, some have built a business on the tragedy like the journalist Chris Dubusage, and those who have been traumatized for life since that dramatic October 1987. Among these is Pam Miller, mother of the protagonist Jamie Hughes, who together with her husband Blake thirty-five years earlier lost her three best friends due to the killer. From that moment on, the woman lives in fear of her, taking all possible precautions to protect herself from the possible return of the killer. Pam also unloads fears on her daughter Jamie, who in turn is forced to grow up in a glass dome due to excessive maternal protection.
However, Pam’s is not just paranoia as her daughter believes. Although more than thirty years have passed since the death of the high school girls, the killer returns to action again, killing Pam himself. Distraught by that loss and by guilt for not taking her mother seriously, Jamie finds some comfort in her best friend Amelia. The latter is passionate about science and technology and has been trying to build a time machine for some time. An object which, if it worked, would currently be ideal for sending Jamie into the past to prevent the murder of her mother. In the meantime, the girls are joined by the serial killer, who during a scuffle with Jamie accidentally starts the time machine with which the girl ends up in 1987. From that moment Jamie tries to stop the crimes of the Sixteen-Year-Old Killer including the murder of his mother Di.
Totally Killer Review and Analysis
The stroke of genius is Jamie’s confrontation with 80s culture. Those who experienced them will certainly not have forgotten it: bullying was part of relationships between teenagers, bad jokes reigned supreme, and they were anything but politically correct. Incorrectness was the order of the day, as was the derision of anyone who did not meet the standards of the time for being popular. This seems like a real horror film, in fact, but there is one very striking scene. And it certainly wasn’t inserted by chance. When the group of friends meets in the cabin of one of their parents, as per tradition alcohol and weed are part of the party. Randy (Jeremy Monn-Djasngar, Cruel Summer) constantly makes vulgar jokes, sexual jokes, and acts of bullying that are inconceivable today (such as putting a girl on his shoulders and throwing her on the lawn because she is unwanted at a party). But when he finds one of the girls in the group alone, semi-conscious due to alcohol, he doesn’t even think for a second about taking advantage of her. He leaves her alone to rest on the bed, goes out, and closes the door.
He doesn’t linger. He doesn’t even look at her maliciously for a split second. The message is clear: once upon a time we may have been vulgar, incorrect, and bullies, but no one would have ever dreamed of abusing a girl, let alone a friend. Today, however, the news tells us how different things are. The comparison between the 80s and the culture of 2023, with all the incorrect phrases and allusions that outrage Jamie, is pulverized in this simple sequence, followed by the one in which everyone risks their lives to save their friends. Another thing that isn’t obvious. “The 80s suck!” Jamie exclaims. But one of the messages of Totally Killer, which enjoys playing on quotes, on the much-abused question of time travel and the multiverse by making fun of it, is that perhaps we should be less careful about politically incorrect phrases displayed on a t-shirt and many more pay attention to the values of respect in the moments that matter.
Jamie is a smart, nice girl who the viewer likes. But his view of her is limited by her own culture, which in a way prevents her from understanding who the killer is. In a game of mirrors, complete with a horror tunnel as the backdrop to one of the central sequences, Totally Killer talks to us about today and yesterday, compares two generations, and draws conclusions. Impeccable, among other things. The cast makes it clear how hilarious this film is: Julie Bowen, the award-winning star of Modern Family, plays Jamie’s mom, Pam. Her father is Lochlyn Munro from Riverdale and Kiernan Shipka, the protagonist in the role of Jamie, is the unforgettable Sabrina in the dark remake of the sitcom of the same name created by Netflix. Fun, between Jamie’s comments and reliving a historical period for those who lived through it, is guaranteed. But even younger spectators – who will inevitably understand the social and cinematographic references less – will be able to have fun in a hunt for the killer, trying to guess his identity. This was very easy for someone who was a kid in 1987, and certainly less simple for a little girl in 2023…
The story of Totally Killer starts on the right foot but then gets a little lost along the way during the change of scenery due to Jamie’s time travel. While at the beginning with Pam’s death, the film seems to take a gripping thriller turn, the choice to shift the focus almost entirely onto a group of teenagers somewhat downsizes Amazon’s film. Putting aside for a moment the central strand of the story linked to Jamie’s mission, the remaining plot of Totally Killer represents the typical stereotypical teen drama that reduces adolescence to drugs, sex, and rock and roll alcohol. These types of stories always revolve around the same dynamics, offering nothing new to the teen drama genre or the content in which they are inserted. Precisely because they limit themselves to telling the usual teenage dramas now seen in dozens of themed titles in the same way.
Furthermore, the same protagonist of Totally Killer, although she is inserted in this context, does not add any variant to break this cliché. Despite being a high school student herself, Jamie is unable to communicate with her peers and becomes the adult “pain in the ass” of the situation, ending up behaving like her mother. Jamie’s only interest is in preventing murders, just as Pam has tried to do with her for years in an attempt to protect her. From a certain point of view, the idea of the serial killer combined with time travel to be able to stop him in his tracks, although not original, turns out to be an interesting plot. But this intent in Totally Killer would probably have been better by alternating the past with the present more to give the same space to both scenarios, which always represent the same reality in different years.
The film Totally Killer proposed by Prime Video is a title that should simply be taken for what it is. That is, a black comedy based on so-called black humor. If you are looking for a full-blown horror then you should focus on something else, as Totally Killer offers the minimum dose of tension about the genre it is part of. In contrast to this, the strong point of the film Totally Killer is the humorous component. It’s not a film that makes you laugh out loud, but thanks to Jamie’s successful character, the presence of tragicomic situations alternating with witty jokes from the protagonist makes watching the film enjoyable. Last but not least, it is worth giving at least a chance to the film Totally Killer to enjoy the moving and at the same time zany final scene of the Amazon feature film. As Hermione Granger claims in the Harry Potter series “terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time”. In Totally Killer, there are no magicians, but the gist of the matter doesn’t change: in your opinion, did Jamie’s arrival in the past have any influence on his present and that of the people he met? To find out, all you have to do is enter the time machine and return to 1987.
Totally Killer Review: The Last Words
The film Totally Killer is a fun black comedy to be taken lightly, without expecting moments of pure terror that make you jump out of your seat. The part of the story dedicated to the serial killer creates a certain tension but without dominating the scene, which is instead concentrated on the drama experienced by the protagonist. Despite the lack of an effective bite, Totally Killer in its small way still manages to keep a certain interest alive until the end. Waiting for the spectators is a crazy ending like the rest of the whole story, ready to make more than one smile. Prime Video gives us a film in pure 80s spirit, so much so that even the part set in 2023 is shot in that style. Which, if you think about it, is a further reflection on how, from fashion to music, in the end, history represents a continuous return of styles. Also, I hope for a moderation of cancel culture in favor of a restoration of certain values of solidarity and friendship in the most dramatic moments.
Totally Killer Review: Prime Video Film That Takes Us Straight Back to the 80s - Filmyhype
Director: Nahnatchka Khan
Date Created: 2023-10-06 12:46
3.5
Pros
- Kiernan Shipka perfect in her role
- Lots of homages and tributes to other titles
- Pleasantly surprising ending
Cons
- Too stereotyped teenagers
- Little space for some subplots
- Some B-movie aspects
