totally killer

2023 Directed by Nahnatchka Khan

Horror Marathon Day 11 Film 17

member slashers? ya I member

This film is written like a LARP setup: Back to the Future for Serial Killers! Fuckin 80s right? We're in nostalgia memberberry time as most of the jokes rely on a spelled out incongruity of politically correct sayings (as if such things don't exist today?) or things that we've modernized as chic about the 80s. Remember Nintendo and D&D? Dodge ball sucked right? The drugs were weak right? Everyone had a bootleg VHS tapes of movies like Robocop.. The retro-nauseam also doesn't make much for any of these high schoolers to be much of a character beyond their archetype.

Unfortunately much of the tension around the film is lost as the killer wearing a meme of a jock "chad" like blond mask brutally kills a woman that has supposedly prepared for this her entire life. Perhaps I get a bit bored when the killer just seems like some humanoid alien lumbering along with extra strength. No matter what these victims do they'll simply be tossed along like rag dolls. For a slasher film to be interesting then the kills have to be especially interesting or suspenseful. There's nothing of that here- simply knife knife knife and they're dead.

Instead this narrative falls on some Scooby-Doo hijinx of Kiernan Shipka being sent back in time and trying to convince her mom and other kids from the school to prevent a killer from killing. Shipka does well enough in her naivety as the other teens act like horror movie characters so of course we have to laugh at their stupidity.

Why even struggle to give this mystery any motivation whatsoever? The movie logic around horror archetypes and time travel don't need to make sense- Somehow we're expected to be elated when the killer is found out- but all of the copycats years later don't seem to be accounted for? Aside from being a loophole the ending feels too wrapped up. There's no room for anything to be scary- so the few forcefed jokes will have to do.