Total Package?

Countless movies have been sold to Hollywood executives with the premise that "it's like [this movie] combined with [that movie]." But these "sold in the room" pitches don't always go on to wear their inspirations so prominently as Totally Killer.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime, Totally Killer is a mashup of Back to the Future and Halloween (both of which are directly called out in the movie). Back in 1987, a serial killer murdered three high school girls in a small town. In 2023, the daughter of one of the survivors is accidentally sent back in time -- where she must protect her own existence, try to stop the murders, and somehow find a way back to her own time.

Totally Killer runs a breezy 106 minutes, but feels even faster than that. Its plot unspools at breakneck pace, in part because it has to: the movie must incorporate all the required tropes of a slasher film and all of the mechanics of a time travel movie. Indeed, it's not always quite logical in doing so... but the speediness helps with that, giving the audience little time to dwell on some of the narrative leaps.

Overall, though, it does feel to me like "two great tastes that taste great together." Or good together, at least. Totally Killer is a lot of fun, generates a decent number of laughs, and has its share of clever slasher set pieces along the way. It's self-aware of its formula and its own shortcomings, and often hangs a lantern on those. It all comes together in a rather entertaining ending, too -- though the "time travel" half of the movie resolves more interestingly than the "slasher" half.

That it mostly works is probably due in large part to star Kiernan Shipka. This talented young performer has worked mostly in television (doing it since she was truly a little kid), but she proves just as up to headlining a movie like this. She's good with the comedy, the action, and the fast changes between the two. And she's basically the only familiar face you'll see in the bulk of the movie; Modern Family's Julie Bowen and Fresh Off the Boat's Randall Park are both here too, but in quite small roles.

Tis the season for a horror film... and if you're going to watch one specifically on Halloween night, you might need one that's OK to pause regularly while you tend to trick-or-treaters at the door. Totally Killer might be that movie. I give it a B.