One of the reasons I love the Halloween season is that there are all kinds of different types of horror movies that come out in theaters and on streaming services. A new and interesting one that caught my interest was Totally Killer from Prime Video starring Kiernan Shipka of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mad Men fame. 

Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) is a normal teenage girl who hangs out with her friend Lauren (Troy Lee-Anne Johnson) She is like any other teenager though her parents are a bit controlling and school isn’t all that fun to her. When the unthinkable happens, her mother gets murdered by a man wearing a Max Headroom mask. She has to try and find out who did this. She gets a little too close as the man who killed her mother tracks her to an old amusement park where her school has set up the science fair. Lauren and she made an old photo booth into their science project. Somehow as the killer is trying to murder her as well as her mother he stabs the machine with his knife and it sends Jamie back in time.

This film had a lot of enjoyable elements that fans of the 80s will remember very fondly, and youngsters of today will know all the things that have changed in our society for better or worse. Let’s start with how today’s society isn’t allowed to say certain things like label people by certain races, body types, or creeds. The society we live in today is a bit overprotective about how people are treated or perceived by each other as a whole. It is not as fun as it used to be to talk to your friends or people in general because you’re afraid you might offend somebody.  I wouldn’t want to be a young person growing up today, that’s for sure.

As far as the 80s go I thought it was pretty funny that a group of girls dressed like Molly Ringwald characters. This is so 80s. Synthetic music is all over the place as well. The clothes and hairstyles were right in line with that decade. I literally felt like I went back in time watching this film and that was the fun part about it. Back to the Future seemed like an inspiration for the writer Sasha Perl-Raver. She knew all the time travel tropes and mixed them well with the 80s murder mystery.

Kiernan Shipka is a popular young actress I came to know from her days on Mad Men where she played the daughter of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Betty Draper (January Jones) characters. She started to come into her own on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In this film she gets more room to be herself and have fun with the time-saver and murder stuff. She balances her character’s modern-day life with the idea that things weren’t as strict back in the 80s. Which is the fun part about her character arcs. She has truly embraced the comedic nature of the story even though it’s somewhat a horror film.

With this being a horror film the director Nahnatchka Khan fell back on a lot of tropes from familier horror films like Halloween and The Scream franchise. Open doors and close doors and sounds coming from upstairs are so yesterday regarding these types of films. The killer carrying a single kitchen knife was a bit overkill. She didn’t bring anything new to the table regarding the murder mystery stuff but maybe that was the point to make it so obviously like older films in the genre it was funny and nostalgic. I wasn’t blown away by the horror part of the story but it was necessary so the rest of the story could take place.

Totally Killer was a fun throwback to Halloween and Back to the Future. It added a lot of fun elements regarding today’s society with the 80s. Throw in a bit of teen angst and you have a decent time-saver murder mystery. Shipka has come into her own as a young actress and I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for fans of hers. Horror elements were a bit old school but maybe that was the point. Overall this was an entertaining movie. Young people and older folks will surely like it for different reasons and that’s what makes it enjoyable. It is relatable for many reasons and to many people watching at home on Amazon Prime.

Totally Killer is streaming on Amazon Prime

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen