Totally Killer

Director: Nahnatchka Khan
Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Julie Bowen, Randall Park, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Kimberly Huie, Liana Liberato, Kelcey Mawema, Stephi Chin-Salvo, Anna Diaz, Ella Choi, Patti Kim, Jeremy Monn-Djasgnar, Tommy Europe, Nathaniel Appiah, Conrad Coates, Nicholas Lloyd, Jonathan Potts
Running Time: 106 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

There's a scene in Blumhouse's time travel slasher comedy Totally Killer where the protagonist shows a character her iPhone in 1987 and we see the reaction. She's perplexed for a second before studying the strange device and realizing that, yes, she'll be able to work with that. It's brief, but indicative of all the little things the movie gets right with a premise you can actually describe as Back to the Future meets Scream without the risk of false advertising. This exchange is one of many you didn't know you needed, with director Nahnatchka Khan delivering a throwback homage that delightfully shows little hesitation acknowledging its influences. And in extracting all the right lessons from some familiar titles, it actually fares better as sci-fi than teen horror, ultimately excelling at both by making inspired choices.

Hilariously skewering the past by going to unexpectedly sharp places with the humor, it's loads of fun, balancing a variety of memorable characters over two timelines. With strong visual cues and an undistracting period specific soundtrack, we're willing to follow the story wherever it goes, inviting obvious comparisons to the Happy Death Day franchise. Others might also be reminded of 2015's The Final Girls, where the heroine is sucked into a retro slasher to reunite with her deceased mom. But while this is similarly stacked with meta references, all roads still lead back to Zemeckis' '85 classic, though in ways you'd wouldn't necessarily assume.

Thirty-five years ago, Jamie's (Kiernan Shipka) mother Pam's (Julie Bowen) three friends Tiffany (Liana Liberato), Marisa (Stephi Chin-Salvo) and Heather (Anna Diaz) were brutally murdered on Halloween by the masked Sweet Sixteen Killer, who was never apprehended and has now returned to finish the job. Tragedy strikes again in 2023 when Pam becomes the eventual fourth victim and daughter Jamie is accidentally sent into the past via her best friend Amelia's (Kelcey Mawema) time machine, determined to stop the killings before they start. 

Stuck in 1987 and aided by the teen versions of her mom (Olivia Holt) and Amelia's science obsessed mother Lauren (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), Jamie enters a far different world than she's used to while encountering a variety of suspects she's quite familiar with. Committed to uncovering the masked murderer before being trapped in the past, she scrambles to prevent her mom's deadly fate, with any rash move potentially causing a ripple effect that alters everyone's lives. 

Writers David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D'Angelo do an excellent job establishing this small town of Vernon and the mythology surrounding these infamous killings, fleshing out all the current characters' lingering relationships to an event a generation prior. And that's just in the first 25 minutes. Woodsboro comparisons are apt, but this is actually more Hill Valley in terms of familiarizing viewers with people we'll see again in the past when Jamie encounters her younger parents and their contemporaries.

Considering the amount of characters involved and how they'll eventually be incorporated into the past timeline, it's impressive how deftly the script pulls that off, communicating a relatably thematic point about townies who peaked in high school but never moved on. It's also conveyed visually by Khan,  depicting a 2023 Vernon that's far from its vibrant, bustling, neon-infused heyday of yesteryear.

Taking a cue from the Halloween sequels, Jamie's justifiably overprotective mom may have been preparing for the killer's return for over three decades, but that isn't enough, no matter how good a fight she puts up. And while the slasher sequences are par for the course, the killer's screen time is kept sparse enough to really make those appearances count. Facially resembling a mashup between Max Headroom and Beavis from Beavis and Butt-head, the murderer has one of those undeniably iconic movie masks that's not only reflective of the period, but one you'd believe remained in the public's consciousness for decades following the original slaughter. 

Even the time traveling sequence itself succeeds, organically leading into the culture shock Jamie experiences in 1987. It's surprising what's focused on, as the jokes and sight gags make it clear she's not viewing the past through rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but an eye-rolling sense of hopeless resignation and pity. With her exasperated facial expressions and detached, deadpan demeanor, the versatile Shipka is perfect in this role, registering Jamie's disbelief at all the smoking, how girls her age are treated, and the ease with which she's able to just walk into school unchecked and enroll. 

Much of that humor continues throughout, with Jamie even using Marty McFly as her reference point for the town's clueless, incompetent sheriff (Randall Park). With Lauren essentially functioning as the story's Doc Brown, their attempts to stop the crimes carry a handful of unintended consequences that could jeopardize the future. In a clever touch, the film also frequently cuts back to 2023, emphasizing that Jamie's gone missing with a crazed killer on the loose. Aside from some small missteps like the overabundance of sex jokes and a true crime podcast trope, the screenplay's a lot better than it's gotten credit for.

Jamie coming to equally disappointing and uplifting realizations about her parents further solidifies how every character is a product of their time, especially Pam and her Molly Ringwald dressalike mean girl squad,"The Mollys." Just as Jamie needs to process  her mom wasn't who she thought, Pam will learn to begrudgingly respect the new badass exchange student from "Canada." And as good as Shipka is, Olivia Holt proves essential in completing one of the better recent up-and-coming actress pairings. Also helping is that Holt's an uncanny physical match for the younger version of a superbly cast Julie Bowen.

Horror whodunnits are difficult since casual and hardcore viewers tend to think they know all the plays and are more than happy to tell you as much. Taking that into account, this reveal is superior to many in logically checking certain boxes to serve the larger story. It'll all culminate in a tension-filled, uniquely set showdown that injects some gravitational excitement into an already perilous situation. 

Totally Killer reminds us how Back to the Future earned a 'PG' rating upon its release despite containing many scenes that wouldn't meet today's more stringent MPAA standards, or apparently those of a Gen Z teen who travels back to the era. But by tackling the same weird cultural displacement that movie's character did in the 50's, this just might be the closet we'll get to another sequel, minus all the baggage such an attempt would carry.