Directed by: Nahnatchka Khan
Written by: David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, Jen D’Angelo

A friend of mine recently told me he prefers watching horror comedies over straight-up horror movies during the Halloween season, and I can understand that preference. While the month of October is universally known as “spooky season,” the tone is usually a healthy mix of creepy and quirky, so why wouldn’t you want your film-watching experience to match that? Fortunately for my friend–and for anyone else who enjoys a good horror comedy–we have Totally Killer.

In 1987, a serial killer dubbed “The Sweet Sixteen Killer” murdered three teenage girls in the days leading up to Halloween. When he returns 35 years later to claim another victim, Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka), the daughter of one of the original killing spree’s survivors, accidentally travels back in time and tries to prevent the murders from happening.

Totally Killer strikes the perfect balance between horror and comedy. There are plenty of tense moments, solid jump scares, and bloody kills, but the dialogue and sight gags are consistently hilarious throughout. If you’re not a fan of horror, the slasher scenes aren’t overly gory, and if you’re not a fan of raunchy comedies, the dirty jokes never go too far. Time travel movies can be hit or miss, but this one is well done- it doesn’t try to overexplain things, and the repercussions of changing the past are handled creatively.

The already strong writing is made even better by a strong cast. Kiernan Shipka has fantastic comedic timing, and I hope we see her get to use it more in future roles. The doomed mean girls (Liana Liberato as Tiffany Clark, Stephi Chin-Salvo as Marisa Song, Anna Diaz as Heather Hernandez, and Olivia Holt as Pam Miller) have some of the funniest lines and deliver the hell out of them. And Jeremy Monn-Djasngar as dumb jock Randy Finkle and Randall Park as inept cop Sheriff Dennis Lim both have small moments of physical comedy that made me cackle.

I only have a couple gripes, and they have to do with character-building. Firstly, we don’t get to know our Final Girl, Jamie, very well before she begins her journey, and the little we do see is kind of unpleasant, making her “awkward nice girl” vibe in 1987 feel undeveloped and out of place. She could have started out as awkward and nice and made the character feel more consistent, or used the sullen, edgy vibe established at the beginning to have a more interesting power dynamic with the 80’s mean girls she’s trying to save, while gradually becoming a better person.

Secondly, true crime podcaster Chris Dubasage (Jonathan Potts) has a pretty big character reveal toward the end of the movie that feels lazy and unearned. It’s not an especially long movie, clocking in at around an hour and 45 minutes, so they absolutely could have tacked on even 5-10 more minutes to flesh out both of these characters a little better.

Overall, though, Totally Killers is an incredibly fun movie. I already want to watch it again, just to revisit some of my favorite parts. I would absolutely recommend adding it to your Halloween watch list for a silly and scary good time.

Have you seen TOTALLY KILLER? Well, what do you think?

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