TOTALLY KILLER – Review

It’s the spooky season, and teen thriller TOTALLY KILLER looks to satisfy that itch for scares. But what appears to be a horror film spoof at first, suddenly morphs into a mash-up of HALLOWEEN and BACK TO THE FUTURE, when a sixteen-year-old girl goes back in time to the 1980s to solve a Halloween triple killing by the “Sweet Sixteen Killer.”

A HALLOWEEN – BACK TO THE FUTURE mash-up isn’t a bad idea but that idea gets bogged down in 1980s nostalgia that sucks the energy out of the horror scares, and even the humor, like a vampire. Do you long for the ’80s? Even if you don’t remember them? Well, someone wanted to revisit that era of big hair, big shoulders, garish fashions and John Hughes films, so we get TOTALLY KILLER. The mind behind this teen horror/time travel adventure is director Nahnatchka Khan, whose works include ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE, and TV’s “Fresh Off The Boat,” working from a script by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE too, but TOTALLY KILLER just doesn’t have that same human appeal or humor, or even much life in it, at least not until the last few minutes. Director Nahnatchka Khan has a following, so I imagine fans still will want to check this one out, but so much ’80s kitsch means you had better be a big fan of that era too.

The whole thing starts out on Halloween, in a quiet small town as kids in costumes fill the tree-lined streets. But around one corner is something odd – a man holding one of those flags that tour guides carry, and leading a group of people all dressed in the same black leather and wearing the same mask – the grinning face of a blonde-haired man.

It is, in fact, a tour – a Halloween tour of the sites associated with the town’s one infamous crime, the “Sweet Sixteen Murders,” which took place back in the 1980s. Three sixteen-year-old girls were each stabbed 16 times, in murders that took place, one by one, over several days, with the last one on Halloween. The killer was never caught, so the unsolved murders have become myths or urban legends, of a sorts, since then. This macabre tour is led by the local expert on the crimes, who also does a podcast about them.

Sixteen-year-old Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) knows all about the killings from more than 30 years ago, because her mother knew the victims back in high school. But then that’s not surprising, since everyone knows everyone in this little town. Jamie’s mom (Julie Bowen) is still nervous that the unknown killer might return, and she wants her 16-year-old daughter to stay home on Halloween, to help her hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. But Jamie has other plans so, rolling her eyes and snarking, she marches off to go to a concert with her best friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema). To appease her worried Mom, she reluctantly agrees to let her Dad (Lochlyn Munro) drive them there and wait around for them until the concert’s end.

What starts out looking like a HALLOWEEN spoof suddenly switches gears and goes BACK TO THE FUTURE, when that long-missing killer does reappear. Jamie finds herself in a long-abandoned amusement park, and hiding inside a photo booth. But it is actually a time machine, which is unexpectedly activated and propels her to the 1980s, setting her on a path to try to prevent the “Sweet Sixteen” murders.

Yeah, about that. Turns out Jamie’s bestie is pretty bright and the time machine is her science fair project, but her mom is even smarter, because it was her notebook that had instructions for building a time machine. So, more than a little suspension of disbelief required here. Plus, this little town is filled with oddities – like an abandoned amusement park that isn’t fenced off, and in fact, where the school science fair is held. Umm, OK.

Sounds like there is potential for comedy, right? But it sounds funnier when described than it actually is in the movie. Once we go back to 1987, the movie’s pace slows to a crawl, to give us time to savor all that 1980s stuff – Molly Ringwald references, the wild-looking designer clothes, dodge-ball, and a school with a complete lack of privacy or security concerns. Like in the original BACK TO THE FUTURE, things are a lot different back in the past than Jamie thought they would be, and stopping the murders is harder than she imagined too. And then there is that thing about how to get back to her own time period.

There is less comedy than you expect and the horror sequences are similarly surprisingly low-energy. The movie’s leisurely pace doesn’t even pick up much when things turn murderous. There is some blood but not many real scares, or even comedic relief. The pace finally does pick up in the last 15 minutes, as Jamie is trying to get back to the present, making for some good pulse-pounding moments that are definitely exciting, and the movie finishes strong at the end. But there is a whole lot of movie before you get to that point. At one hour and 43 minutes, it feels longer.

If you love everything 1980s, TOTALLY KILLER might be for you, as just wandering around in the 1980s seems the point more than solving mysteries or preventing murders, much less scaring the audience or making them laugh. However, Shipka does a nice job as Jamie, adding a little welcome bit of snark to liven things up, and the film has a heartwarming message by the end. But there is a whole lot of time where not much of anything happens, scary, funny or otherwise.

TOTALLY KILLER debuts opens Friday, Oct. 6, streaming on demand on Amazon Prime Video.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars