Totally Killer

I was expecting this film to be a lot funnier. It isn't easy to do horror comedy and this fell flat in a few places. It was slightly ruined by all the PC references all throughout and it made the movie really aggravating. The main character calls out people for calling others fat, calls out racism, calls out homophobic people, a reporter comments on how strange it is to see men showing emotion....it's all just a bit much. Even Kiernan Shipka couldn't save this. She should have swapped roles with Olivia Holt. Might have been slightly better. Nevertheless I liked the end reveal, and parts of it were funny, but it had way more potential.

No representation of Heavy Metal kids. In the 1987 metal was king. You would expect to see plenty of black t-shirts with bands on them.

Nobody is dressing up like Molly Ringwald. That's just crazy.

The flannel shirt and haircut with all of it the one length of her dad when he's young is straight out of 1994. Long hair wasn't like that in the 80s it was a lot more mullet like. Think hair bands or Mel Gibson in lethal weapon.

A big problem with this film is that it wasn't made in the Valley. If you're going to call it totally killer you would expect to see a big valley girl clique with 80s haircuts and hair. All they needed to do was view weird science to see how the 80s was. This movie is like they did no research and never lived through the 80s. Also the music was so mainstream 80s and no kids would listen to that.

Anyway. As a movie it's not sure if it's a time travel movie or a horror. It fails at both pretty much and doesn't have much if any comedy. Maybe I don't think much of this film. It's really pretty boring like if Gen Z decided to make a film about the 80s and had no clue whatsoever what they were doing. I know it's a stretch right :P.

If you're into campy slasher movies and 80's films you will love this movie. I started watching this without any preconceived notions but realized quickly that it would be a sort of Scream/John Hughes hybrid.

I was pleasantly surprised with all the throw back memories and innuendo. It is completely cheesy but that good cheesy that can make you miss a time/memory and yet still have room for that comedic killer feel.

It's not a perfect movie and doesn't claim to be but it is fun and will keep you entertained for almost two hours. Honestly, I wish there were more movies like this and I certainly wouldn't be mad if there was a part two.

In 1987 three teenage girls, part of a group of friends, were murdered by the ‘Sweet Sixteen’ killer in the quiet town of Vernon. In the present these unsolved murders are still the most famous thing to have happened there. Pam Hughes was the fourth member of the group of friends; now she has her own teenage daughter, Jamie, who she is nervous about letting go out alone. One night when Jamie is out a masked killer murders Pam; it would appear that the Sweet Sixteen Killer is back! Jamie uses a time machine invented by her friend to return to 1987 and try to stop the killings and thus save her mother. Not only must she get close to her mother and her friends, she must find a way to get back to the present… and avoid becoming another victim of the killer.

I thought this was a lot of fun. There are plenty of laughs to be had but it avoids becoming a spoof of the genre. There is a real sense of danger and some moderately gory deaths. There are plenty of nods to well-known films of the time; most obviously ‘Back to the Future’ which is directly referenced several times. Tonally it has more in common with high-school movies and ‘Scream’ than the slasher films of the era; they tended to be much scarier and unpleasant. The characters are fun and the cast does a solid job; I particularly liked Kiernan Shipka, who played Jamie. I know some people were put off my Jamie’s criticisms of ‘80s attitudes and behaviour but it didn’t particularly bother me as it hardly effected the story. Overall a fun film for fans of the genre; if you liked ‘Happy Death Day’ and ‘Freaky’ you are likely to enjoy this.

I'm glad I went in knowing absolutely nothing about it; I thought it was just going to be a vaguely humorous slasher movie so I was very pleasantly surprised!

It was a fun ride from beginning to end that kept me engaged the whole time. The cast is doing a great job and the script has enough originality paired with poking fun at its own clichés that it doesn't feel like reheating the same formula. And the script manages to keep us guessing for the most part of the movie, if not until the end.

So all in all this was a great unexpected find and I do recommend it, especially as an alternative to the usual scary movies for spooky season.