'Totally Killer' is basically 'Halloween' meets 'Back to the Future'. In October of 1987, three of Pam Miller's (Olivia Holt) best friends are killed by the "Sweet Sixteen Killer", whose MO is stabbing 16 year old girls 16 times. As a result of this traumatic youth full experience, 36 years later Pam Hughes (now played by Julie Bowen) is a more then normally protective mother to her 16 year old daughter Jamie (Kiernan Shipka). Jamie has grown dismissive of her mother's seeming paranoia, but then the Sweet Sixteen Killer reemerges and kills Pam!
Helpfully Jamie's best friend Amelia (Kelcey Mawema) has been trying to complete the time machine her mother started working on in the 80's, so you can see where this is going. In course of story Jamie finds herself stranded back in 1987, where she enlists her best friends future mother (Kimberly Huie) to fix the photoboth time machine, while she works to stop the Sweet Sixteen Killer and save her mother and her friends.
I enjoyed this, it's an interesting blend, derivative sure, but fun and mixes things up just enough to occasionally surprise and deliver a workable sense of tension. Woke Gen Z teen encountering the non PC, 80's world of her Gen X parents proves a good source of humor, be it the horrors of a racist school mascot, problamatic non consensual touch, and my favorite bit, no one bothering to check her fake cover story; she just shows up at the school claiming to be a Canadian exchange student and the receptionist hands her a class schedule.
Again I liked it, knowing the story now I will probably watch it again soon to see if 1987 Sheriff Randall Park is right, that time travel movies (though fun) never make sense. ***
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