Summary
- Totally Killer is a time-traveling slasher story that pays homage to 1980s slashers and features a teen protagonist trying to save her mom from a killer.
- The movie's unique twist involves the protagonist accidentally traveling back in time to 1987 and teaming up with her teenage mom and her friends to thwart the Sweet 16 Killer.
- The Final Girls, a cult horror hit from 2015, has a similar premise where a teen is transported into a slasher movie and teams up with her deceased mother's character, exploring slasher tropes in novel ways. Both films make for a perfect horror-comedy double feature.
The time-traveling slasher story of Totally Killer has already played out in another comedy-horror flick that debuted eight years ago. Directed by Nahnatchka Khan, the filmmaker behind Ali Wong's 2019 Netflix hit Always Be My Maybe, and produced under the Blumhouse Television banner, Totally Killer is a straight-to-streaming riff on 1980s slashers. The movie stars Kiernan Shipka as Jamie Hughes, a present-day teen whose mom, Pam (Julie Bowen), is murdered on Halloween. It turns out that Pam's fate was a long time coming: as a teenager she was the only one of her friends to evade the Sweet 16 Killer on Halloween night in 1987.
Through a strange turn of events, a grieving Jamie accidentally travels back in time to 1987 and meets up with Totally Killer's fun cast of characters. In order to save her mom in the present, Jamie decides to thwart the Sweet 16 Killer's original spree by befriending teenage Pam (Olivia Holt) and her (previously murdered) friends — Tiffany (Liana Liberato), Marisa (Stephi Chin-Salvo), and Heather (Anna Diaz). Faced with navigating both the '80s and a rampaging killer, Shipka's Jamie is a charming fish-out-of-water protagonist. However, Totally Killer's seemingly novel comedy-horror meets sci-fi premise isn't the first time-traveling slasher to see a teenage hero teaming up with her final girl/scream queen mother.
The Final Girls Time Travel Premise Explained
Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, the 2015 cult horror hit The Final Girls is a horror-comedy movie that's eerily similar to Totally Killer. The Final Girls centers on Max Cartwright (Taissa Farmiga), a teen whose deceased actor mother, Amanda Cartwright (Malin Åkerman), is most well-ed for playing "scream queen" Nancy in the fictional fan-favorite slasher movie Camp Bloodbath. At a special screening of the '80s Camp Bloodbath films, a random fire consumes the theater mid-screening. To escape the blaze, Max tears a hole in the screen and she and her friends walk through it.
Max and the others soon discover they've been transported into the world of the movie. Not only that, but Camp Bloodbath replays its plot every 92 minutes, effectively trapping them in a time loop — not too unlike Totally Killer's time travel conceit. In order to escape the film, Max's group teams up with the tortured teen characters of Camp Bloodbath, including Nancy. Understandably, the experience of meeting the iconic, unreal movie version of her late mother is pretty emotionally charged for Max. With a fantastic blend of scares, humor, and heart, The Final Girls explores the slasher genre's most well-known tropes in novel ways, thanks in large part to its unique premise.
Why The Final Girls Is The Perfect Double Feature With Totally Killer
The Final Girls and Totally Killer make for a perfect horror-comedy double feature. Apart from their totally killer '80s soundtracks, both movies share the same self-referential, self-mocking DNA of slasher send-ups. Not only do they poke fun at the scream queen and final girl tropes, but they interrogate them. Although The Final Girls' time loop stems from the film-within-a-film's runtime, the conceit still allows Farmiga's Max to team up with a younger version of her mother, much like Shipka's Jamie. While they are distinct flicks, The Final Girls and Totally Killer share some DNA, making them a perfect viewing pair.
