Totally Killer premieres October 6 on Netflix. This review is part of IGN’s coverage of Fantastic Fest 2023.
Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may have completed their runs, but Kiernan Shipka is returning to the role of an annoyed teenager ready to take on the world in Prime Video’s Totally Killer. And by “world,” I actually mean a deranged serial killer and 1980s culture, of course. While this type of part isn’t quite new to Shipka, she’s doing what she does best here alongside director Nahnatchka Khan of Always Be My Maybe and Fresh Off the Boat fame in what ends up being something along the lines of Scream meets Disney Channel Original Movie. In case it’s unclear: That is a compliment.
Shipka plays Jamie Hughes, a typical teen who would like her mom to, like, totally chill out, man. But Pam Hughes (Julie Bowen) isn’t your typical mom. She may give strong “very involved in the PTA” vibes, but she also survived the 1987 murder spree of the so-called Sweet Sixteen Killer. Three of her classmates weren’t so lucky, so Pam’s got a pretty solid reason to be Overbearing Mom of the Year. But when have teenagers ever cared about their parents’ rationale – especially in the movies?
And what’s one of those movies without a traumatic event that helps the teenager realize all the things they took for granted? When a tragedy strikes the Hughes family, Jamie will stop at nothing to make things right. There’s just one little hiccup: The Sweet Sixteen Killer is back, and he seems extremely interested in the only child of Pam and Blake Hughes (Lochlyn Munro). An altercation between Jamie and the killer sends her throttling back in time to 1987, where she’s given the chance to set things right in the future – if she can avoid the pesky serial killer in the rubber mask, that is.
All of the Back to the Future references you expect are front and center here, but not in a way that’s cloying. What makes Totally Killer’s depiction of the ’80s so refreshing is that it limits the loudest period signifiers to the Sweet Sixteen Killer and the character archetypes – 1987 just looks like 1987, without the exaggerated costumes, hair, and sets we’ve come to expect from other nostalgia pieces. The one exception to this rule is The Mollys – the school mean girls who are obsessed with Molly Ringwald – but it’s for a bit, so it plays.
A lot of Totally Killer’s success is in its heart. That sincerity excuses a lot, like the hokey visual effects of the time-travel sequences – an aesthetic that’s clearly intentional, though it’ll grate on some. The film also earns some goodwill by acknowledging that time travel stories are messy business, and they’re always defying their own logic. If you’re the type to take teen slasher comedies super seriously (why?), fair warning: Totally Killer defies its own logic a lot in the third act. But Shipka’s patented brand of earnest-kid-who-screws-up-sometimes-but-loves-incredibly-hard does a lot of work here.
A lot of Totally Killer’s success is in its heart.
Bowen and Munro do a lot with a little, too. This is Jamie’s movie, so their screentime is incredibly limited, but Bowen makes you fall in love with her domineering mom character immediately, and Munro continues his hilarious trend of playing suspicious teen-girl dads who are most definitely not the killer. Probably. Maybe. (Also we love a Riverdale/Chilling Adventures of Sabrina reunion!) High praise also belongs to both timelines’ version of Lauren Creston (played by Kimberly Huie in the present and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson in the ’80s). Lauren is the mother of Jamie’s best friend, Amelia (Kelcey Mawema, who also performs admirably here), and she’s tied to the teens’ survival more than you could possibly imagine at the outset.
Ultimately, Totally Killer isn’t reinventing any wheels, but it’s still a dang good time at the movies. It pays plenty of homage to the slashers that came before it, and the story’s emotional throughline and cast carries it successfully. It’s not quite “intro-horror,” as some of the kills may be too advanced for some younger audiences, but it’s a good one to show to teens curious about the genre, and is an easy watch for all ages.
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