Totally Killer suffers from the same problem most horror-comedies suffer from. It works better as a horror movie than as a comedy. That might be why when Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson were making the Scream movies, they decided to use the comedy sporadically. And you can see the difference in Scream 3 as compared to the others. They were horror flicks first and foremost.
Totally Killer has a wonderful beginning. In late October in 1987, three teenagers in the fictional town of Vernon were brutally murdered. Their murders were never solved as no one was ever arrested. Years go by and now their peers are in their early to mid-50s trying to move on as the memory still remains. The killer was called The Sweet 16 Killer because all women were stabbed 16 times on their respective 16th birthdays.
In present day, teenager Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka) is spending Halloween night with her friend, Amelia Creston (Kelcey Mawena). Her father, Blake (Lochlyn Munro), drives them as her mother, Pam (Julie Bowen), stays home to pass out candy. But she is attacked by the killer. Despite a good fight as Pam has learned self-defense and hidden firearms around the house just in case, she is brutally murdered.
Grieving, Jamie is approached by a podcast reporter Chris Dubusage (Jonathan Potts), who shows her a note Pam received when she was a teenager with the message of “You’re next.” Jamie goes to a rundown amusement park where Amelia claims she’s working on a time machine made out of a photo booth. The killer shows up and through the struggle activates the machine causing Jamie to go back to 1987.
After some confusion as she notices everyone is smoking and dressed out of style, Jamie deduces she went back in time and then realizes that the three teenagers killed are still alive. Tiffany Clark (Liana Liberto), Marisa Song (Stephi Chin-Salvo) and Heather Hernandez (Anna Diaz) are all part of a Mean Girls-like clique who call themselves The Mollys (as in Molly Ringwald) where Jamie’s mother, Pam (Oliver Holt) is the leader. Eventually, Jamie learns that most of the people who are in authority in her present where drunken, perverted hell-raisers as teenagers. This is actually one of the best jokes as anyone who’s ever grown up around people who used to get drunk every weekend at parties act like Ned and Maude Flanders in their 40s when they become parents.
Unfortunately, this is one of the few jokes of the movie that work. As a sheriff, Kara Lim (Patti Kim) is a strict authorative figure. But as a teen played by Ella Choi, she’s laid back and smokes a lot of weed. The school principal, Doug Summers (Conrad Coates), is actually a muscle-bound jock as a teen (Nathanial Appiah) who asserts his dominance over people. The men are also very misogynistic and sexist, Jamie discovers. And this leads to the problem with the movie. There’s too much of her constantly being bewildered by the sexism and behavior of people as well as a dodgeball game that she finds violent.
The movie can’t help but fall under the Law of the Most Extraneous Character as the identity of killer but I think it’s a subtle nod to the slasher flicks of the 1980s by doing this. There’s also a nice twist behind the killings that I feel works out very well. Nahnatchka Khan, as director, manages to make a decent horror flick even if the comedy doesn’t always land correctly. There’s a running joke of Jamie trying to keep Pam and Blake (played by Charlie Gillespie as a teen) from having sex meaning they will undo her existence. This is a flip on Back to the Future with how Marty McFly had to get his parents together. One funny scene is when Pam cuts herself making a sandwich and Blake uses bread as bandages.
Shipka handles the lead role really well especially when the movie gets past her constantly freaking out on how things are different. Holt applies enough of a Mean Girls feel that we realize it’s a facade that she is actually different behind closed doors. Jamie must also have to track down Amelia’s mother, Lauren (played as a teen by Kimberly Huie), who is also very intelligent scientifically, to help her out. She becomes the Doc Brown to her Marty. While I’d argue that in 1987, African-American teens would hang out with the white cool (and rich!) kids as well as people of southeast Asian ancestry. But for the purpose of a movie intended to be a parody, I’ll forgive it.
While I feel the movie could’ve had about 10-15 minutes slashed off, it does run a little long at 106 minutes with credits. Jokes about the 1980s might have been funny in the 1990s and 2000s. But after Hot Time Time Machine came out in 2010, it seems we’ve gone a little overboard the last 10 years of so with the 1980s, especially following the popularity of Stranger Things. At least they got it right about how everyone smoked and there was second-hand smoke everywhere.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 