We have seen a burgeoning trend of slashers dipping into time travel motifs.
From The Final Girls to Happy Death Day, this fairly untapped resource has provided plenty of memorable sequences and a fresh way to reanimate the established slasher beats.
So we come to Nahnatchka Khan’s Totally Killer, a delightfully breezy horror comedy which works as a whodunit as much as a gory comedy.
Kiernan Shipka will be well-known to fans of the shortlived reboot of Sabrina, and she shines as a lead who is both smart and tough. Shipka’s Jamie is well-trained in self-defence and uses her skills on multiple occasions to escape the killer.
The basic premise of Totally Killer is Jamie, by accident, goes back in time whilst being hunted by a killer who was deemed an urban myth after disappearing 35 years after their initial massacre. This gives her the opportunity to save her mother from the killer’s blade, but will she mess with time by changing other things.
Comparisons to Back to the Future are easy, but Totally Killer does well not to beat the audience over the head with 80s nostalgia, which would have been very easy to do.
There are hints of Heathers too, with a group of High Schools named the Mollies, after Mollie Ringwald, while dressing like the actress in different roles.
Totally Killer is not afraid to get gory too, with our killer stabbing their victims 16 times, making their attacks extremely violent. Khan directs with confidence and shows maturity in their first feature film.
Totally Killer is a retro time travel slasher that provides a rollicking good time.
Totally Killer is available to stream now on Amazon.
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