Great genre film festivals bring dozens of stellar crime, horror, action and sci-fi films from across the globe to screen under one roof. The best U.S. genre fest in the business is Fantastic Fest which is held during the final week of September every year. The 18th edtion of that festival concluded on September 28th and brought nearly 100 feature films to the Alamo Drafthouse Theater in Austin, Texas.
Fantastic Fest is an annual reminder of the power of theater going with its communal consumption of cinematic gems by like-minded fans. Every screening I attended was packed with cinephiles from around the world. All badge levels were sold out. The standby line ran down the sidewalk nearly to the parking deck.
The festival closed with the world premiere of Totally Killer, a (predominantly) 80’s set horror comedy that hits Amazon Prime on October 6th. In the horror genre, everything old is made new again. Happy Death Day (2017) and its sequel took the conventions of the slasher film and blended them with a Groundhog Day-like time loop. Freaky ((2020) combined the slasher genre with the body-swapping conceit of Freaky Friday (1976 and 2003). And now Totally Killer gives you the cross-pollination of a slasher film and Back to the Future that you never knew you needed, but will certainly enjoy.
In 1987, the Sweet Sixteen Killer murdered three high school girls, stabbing them sixteen times on their sixteenth birthdays. He (or she) was never caught. Now, thirty-five years later, a new victim has been claimed. However, she’s not a 16-year-old high school student. She’s the 51-year-old mother of our protagonist Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and a former classmate of the three girls murdered in 1987.
What’s the connection between the murders? Is the killer in 2022 the same as the killer in 1987? Jamie intends to find out by hijacking her bestfriend’s science fair project to travel back in time to the week of the original murders. If she can prevent the original murders or apprehend the original killer, then she can save her mother’s life.
Horror comedies are often thankless affairs for filmmakers. One segment of your viewing audience will claim its not funny enough; the other segment will whine that it’s not scary enough. The two tones are difficult to combine effectively. As someone who was a high schooler in the 1980’s, the depiction of the casual racism and misogyny that was commonplace in that era is nothing short of hilarious. Jamie’s meta-commentary in the form of visible cringes, double takes and sarcastic criticizing of the coffending characters works better than I would’ve expected.
On the horror side of the coin, there are a few nice jump scares and the “kills” are surprisingly bloody for a horror comedy. If you’re looking for a terrifying, disturbing horror film, then you clearly need to search elsewhere. Totally Killer is a party of a horror film which is ironic since it’s coming to streaming rather than to theaters. It seems perfect for a blended release: theaters on October 6th and then streaming in time for Halloween. Instead, it hits Amazon Prime this Friday.
I’ll eave those marketing decisions to the movie executives. As a film critic, I can simply say that if you like horror films, you’ll have a great time with Totally Killer.
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