Totally Killer

***Totally Killer*** is a 2023 American black comedy slasher film directed by Nahnatchka Khan from a screenplay by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, and a screen story by Matalon and Perl-Raver. It stars Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, and Julie Bowen. *Totally Killer* premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 28, 2023, and was released on Prime Video on October 6, 2023.

## Synopsis

35 years after the shocking murder of three teens, the infamous “Sweet Sixteen Killer“ returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. 17-year-old Jamie ignores her overprotective mom’s warning and comes face to face with the masked maniac and on the run for her life, accidentally time travels back to 1987, the year of the original killings. Forced to navigate the unfamiliar and outrageous culture of the 1980s, Jamie teams up with her teen mom to take down the killer once and for all before she’s stuck in the past forever.

## Plot

In the small town of Vernon, podcaster Chris Dubasage is giving a tour to fans, talking about the infamous Sweet Sixteen Killer from 1987. In October of that year on the 27th, Tiffany Clark was murdered and found in her parents’ garage on the night of her sweet sixteen party, and she was stabbed sixteen times. Days later on the 29th and 31st, Tiffany’s friends Marisa Song and Heather Hernandez were also killed and found in a similar manner. The killer was never found, but Vernon still views him as an icon and hosts a “murder tour” while people wear his mask.

In the present day, teenager Jamie Hughes is getting ready to go to a concert with her best friend Amelia Creston. Her mother Pam tries to come in and tell her to be safe since it’s the 35th anniversary of the murders, and Pam was friends with the victims. When Pam suggests that Jamie stay and celebrate Halloween with her and her dad Blake like always, Jamie coldly brushes Pam off before Blake takes her and Amelia to the concert. Pam is also seen getting a message from Chris, who Blake always found to be a creepy weirdo and always preferred his beloved newscaster dad Norm. While Pam is waiting for trick-or-treaters, someone wearing the Sweet Sixteen Killer’s mask shows up at the Hughes house. Pam thinks it’s a crude joke until the guy slashes at her with a knife. Pam uses self-defense techniques against him, but the killer overpowers her and stabs her to death. Her body is found by two kids before Jamie and Blake return to the scene. Jamie is left crying in her room, regretting the last thing she said to her mom.

At school, Principal Doug Summers offers his condolences to Jamie, while Sheriff Kara Lim suggests Jamie is a suspect or knows something about the killer’s identity. Jamie fires back at her, saying she is as useless as her own sheriff father was in catching the killer back in 1987. Jamie later joins Amelia at the site of the school science fair, where her project is a working time machine, based off the designs of her mother Lauren. While it is not complete, Amelia has the travel date set to October 27th, 1987, which is the night of Tiffany’s murder when the killing spree began. Jamie later contacts Chris since she knew he and Pam were texting, with hopes that they may uncover the killer’s identity. Chris shows Jamie a note that was supposedly left in Pam’s locker in high school by the killer, warning her she was going to be next. When Jamie returns to join Amelia at the fair, the killer appears and chases after Jamie. She hides in the photo booth where the time machine is, and the killer activates it by stabbing the control panel.

Jamie time-travels to 1987. She is taken to the high school to look for the young Pam and is instantly enrolled as a new student. She meets Pam, who is the most popular mean girl at the school alongside Tiffany, Marisa, and Heather, who are all called “The Mollys” because they like to dress like Molly Ringwald. Jamie ends up playing dodgeball in gym class with them, and Pam repeatedly hits her with multiple balls. After class, Jamie introduces herself to the girls and tries to find a way to get Tiffany to cancel her sweet sixteen party for that night, but just gets rudely told off by Pam. Jamie first goes to find Sheriff Dennis Lim, Kara’s father, to try and warn him that murders will begin happening. She then goes to find the young Lauren, who is a science nerd like Amelia will be. Jamie explains her situation like the plot of “Back to the Future” and how she needs to find the killer and return home as soon as possible. She convinces Lauren by showing her her iPhone and then taking her to the photo booth where the machine is. Lauren gets her tools to try and fix it.

Later, Jamie and Lauren go to Tiffany’s party, but jock Randy Finkle, who is Jamie’s gym teacher in the present, bars them from entering because they are “losers”. The young Doug is also rejected from going in, and Jamie also finds the young Kara, who is a major stoner here. Jamie tries to find a way to sneak in and get in with The Mollys, even though they think she’s weird. She sees the young Blake and gets grossed out after briefly finding him hot, and he is already dating Tiffany. Randy ends up throwing her out again. When Jamie gets back inside, she witnesses Blake and Tiffany fighting, and Jamie inadvertently convinces Tiffany to hook up with a classmate named Eddie Royal, who is a super famous rock star that Jamie is a fan of. Tiffany and Eddie go to her parents’ bedroom to make out, and Jamie starts going all around the house looking for Tiffany when she doesn’t appear in the garage. Eddie disappears, and the killer emerges from the closet to begin stabbing Tiffany to death on the waterbed. Jamie and Pam arrive too late to find her dead. Jamie and Lauren accompany a traumatized Pam home, where they see that she is rude to her mother (Jamie previously noted that her grandmother never visits because of Pam).

Back in the present, Blake notices Jamie has gone missing, and he suspects Chris had something to do with it. Amelia sees her time machine and figures Jamie was sent back in time. She gets help from Chris, as they find new crime scene photos of Tiffany’s murder, since they remember her being found in the garage unlike now where it was her parents’ bedroom. Amelia also notices a message on the waterbed from Jamie saying “Stab the machine”, cluing her in that another metal conductor is needed to make the machine work. Jamie returns to school with the girls and learns about a student called “Fat Trish” who died after driving drunk. Trish had a brother that everyone calls Lurch that works at the fair and is known to creep others out. Jamie later joins Pam, Marisa, and Heather at the same cabin where Marisa was murdered, despite Jamie’s protests to keep things small. Randy, Kara, and Blake also show up for festivities. Jamie also tries to prevent Pam from hooking up with Blake so soon for fear of messing something up in the future. When Jamie gets locked out of the cabin, she sees the killer entering and tries to warn Kara and Randy. Jamie then sees the killer going after Heather instead of Marisa. The killer chases Heather and stabs her to death in the living room. Jamie and Blake manage to fight the killer off and send him running.

Lauren later tells Jamie that her phone, which is going to help her return to her time period, is running low on battery, and if it gets to zero, Jamie will be stuck in 1987 forever. At the fair, Jamie sees the ride, the Quantum Drop, and thinks it can be an alternate source of power. Jamie only remembers it because Pam had mentioned that she found out she was pregnant with Jamie while on that ride. Jamie then sees Lurch, suspecting he is the killer. She goes into his van and is found by him, but he just has video game cartridges everywhere. Lurch catches Jamie and tells her he is not a killer, but he does have an interest in wanting to develop games.

The rest of the group shows up at the fair, while in the present, Amelia is closer to fixing her machine. The group gets stalked by the killer inside a haunted house. As he goes after Marisa, the others fight back against him, ending with Kara impaling the killer with a scythe. Jamie unmasks the killer, revealing him to be Doug. Pam then remembers that Doug was Trish’s boyfriend. Marisa then realizes that Doug knew about a sleepover they had where the Mollys invited Trish over and got her drunk because they wanted to know if she really had sex with their coach. After crying in Tiffany’s room, Trish drove home and got into her fatal accident. Jamie starts to blame Pam, thinking she would allow Trish to do that, but Pam says that she was in a fight with Tiffany at that point and was not at the sleepover. She also doesn’t remember receiving a note in her locker like what Chris had shown Jamie. Moments later, another killer shows up and slashes Marisa’s throat, forcing everyone to run. Also back in the present, Lauren finds Amelia knocked out, and the time machine is gone.

Jamie runs toward the Quantum Drop, and the killer takes a moment to stab Norm on live TV. Pam and the killer follow Jamie onto the ride, where Pam recalls hearing Jamie saying something about a pivotal moment there involving her. The killer stabs Pam, but Jamie ejects her from the ride so she can be safe. The killer is revealed to be Chris, who killed Pam and his own dad to kickstart a new killing spree so he can profit off of it with his podcast. He attempts to kill Jamie as the time machine activates, but Jamie shoots him with Lauren’s nail gun and kicks him against the walls of the machine, causing Chris to explode into pink mist.

Jamie returns to the present and is elated to find Pam alive. Lauren and Amelia show up moments later, letting them know that their efforts to save Jamie worked. Lauren privately talks to Jamie outside, letting her know that a lot has changed since she altered the past, so she gives her a notebook to check in on all the differences. A young man shows up at the house, revealed to be Jamie’s 34-year-old brother, who is actually the one named Jamie, and the main Jamie is now called Colette.

The ending text of Lauren’s notebook reveals more differences, such as how Pam and Blake got together immediately, leading to Jamie having an older brother with a husband and daughter. Pam also has a better relationship with her mom. Randy became the school principal, and Kara is now chief of police, and much happier with her job. Lauren has a better job as a bioengineer, and Amelia is still Jamie’s (or Colette’s) best friend and a genius. Lurch became a video game developer and started an anti-bullying organization in honor of Trish. Eddie Royal went from a hard rocker in a band called “Killer Instinct” to an emo band called “A Waterbed Away” because that’s how close he was to death. Chris is still alive now since his father’s murder traumatized him and led him to become a monk, but Lauren still keeps tabs on him.

## Cast and characters

* Olivia Holt as teen Pam Miller
	+ Julie Bowen as adult Pam Hughes
* Charlie Gillespie as teen Blake Hughes
	+ Lochlyn Munro as adult Blake Hughes
* Troy Johnson as teen Lauren Creston
	+ Kimberly Huie as adult Lauren Creston
* Liana Liberato as Tiffany Clark
* Kelcey Mawema as Amelia Creston
* Stephi Chin-Salvo as Marisa Song
* Anna Diaz as Heather Hernandez
	+ Patti Kim as adult Kara Lim
* Jeremy Monn-Djasgnar as teen Randy Finkle
	+ Tommy Europe as adult Randy Finkle
* Nathaniel Appiah as teen Doug Summers
	+ Conrad Coates as adult Doug Summers
* Nicholas Lloyd as teen Chris Dubusage
	+ Jonathan Potts as adult Chris Dubusage
* Randall Park as Sheriff Dennis Lim
* Zach Gibson as teen Lurch
	+ Brendan O'Brien as adult Lurch

## Production

On November 14, 2018, Amazon Studios closed an exclusive production deal with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Television for a eight thriller genre features which will all be connected thematically. The deal marks Amazon Studios’ first ever global-direct to service deal for feature length programs. The movies will debut on the Amazon Prime Video service which reaches over 200 territories around the globe. The movies will be made by a diverse group of filmmakers, and it’s developed out of Amazon’s movie department. Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios, said in statement: “Jason Blum has built an empire based on fear, shock and all things spinetingling. He has redefined the horror genre for fans who are hungry for high concept scares. Whether it’s found footage, a socially conscious terror comedy or a pure sinister adrenaline ride, he reinvented and infused the genre with cultural relevancy. We can’t wait to see the nightmares he brings direct to service for our Prime Video global audience.” Said Blum, “We are delighted Amazon is entrusting Blumhouse to deliver its signature thrills and chills to its global audience through this deal. This is a great opportunity for Blumhouse Television to empower underrepresented filmmakers offering a fresh take on the dark genres loved by fans the world over,” said Blum, founder of the indie television studio.

On May 12, 2022, Prime Video and Blumhouse Television's horror-comedy slasher feature *Totally Killer* was announced, whereas the pic is a continuation of the deal forged by Prime Video and Blumhouse Television in 2019. Alongside the press information, the cast was revealed with Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt and Julie Bowen headlining. Randall Park, Lochlyn Munro, Charlie Gillespie, Stephi Chin-Salvo, Anna Diaz, Jeremy Monn-Djasgnar, Troy Johnson, Ella Choi, Kelcey Mawema, Liana Liberato, Nathaniel Appiah, and Jonathan Potts were also announced to be apart of the film.

Khan said, “The idea of a horror-comedy time-travel movie is, I’m gonna be honest, something I never thought of in my life. So when I was approached by the amazing creatives at Blumhouse and Amazon about *Totally Killer*, it was just so unique and exciting I had to be involved. And then add this incredible cast on top of that? Everybody get readyyyyyyy.” Said Chris McCumber, president of Blumhouse Television, “We thought this genre mash-up of slasher/comedy with a twist of time travel was just so fun, and Nahnatchka Khan is perfect to direct.” Added Julie Rapaport, head of movies at Amazon Studios: “With Nahnatchka’s vision and the exciting cast led by Kiernan Shipka and Olivia Holt, we are confident *Totally Killer* will resonate with our audience around the world. We could not be more thrilled to watch this story come to life and to continue our longstanding collaboration with the incredible team at Blumhouse.”

Producers for *Totally Killer* are Jason Blum for Blumhouse and Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath for Divide/Conquer. EPs are Khan and Chloe Yellin for Fierce Baby Productions, Chris McCumber and Jeremy Gold for Blumhouse Television, and Brian Parker.

### Filming

Principal photography took place from May 12 to June 23, 2022, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Additionally, Templeton Secondary School was used as a stand-in for Vernon High School, the scenes at the Hughes residence were shot at a property at 1122 West 26th Avenue, some scenes were also filmed nearby on 49th Avenue and Butler Street. Besides filming on location, set work was completed at The Bridge Studios in Burnaby.

In a press brief, Nahnatchka Khan said “For the '80s house party, we really wanted that sort of classic-looking house that you've seen in all the John Hughes movies. This lovely couple let us shoot in their bedroom, where we rigged up the whole waterbed kill.” The cabin, where the girls stay was challenging to find, but production designer Liz Kay actually stumbled upon the Canadian location while skiing on an off day. “As I'm riding up the chairlift, I look down and see a cabin and then ski down to check it out,” Kay said in the brief. “That was the cabin.” Added cinematographer Judd Overton, “We had to put on the right shoes and gear to even get in. It felt like the best location for the story, a haunted cabin in the wilderness, but practically it was not the best because it's very small.” The production couldn’t get access to an actual carnival amusement park, they were able to borrow equipment from Canadian carnies to bring one to life in a parking lot.

Most notably, the team dissected and reassembled a vintage photo booth and shot on a working Gravitron ride that’s portrayed as The Quantum Drop in the film. Kay found the vintage photo booth online and had it shipped to Canada. “I wanted an original one because I wanted some of the real parts, where the pictures come out on the side,” Kay said. “They're too hard to fabricate, so it's better to have the bones of an old one and adapt it.” Another crucial design moment was the waterbed sequence. Kay and her team built and designed the waterbed, which is basically a bed with a water topper. “You could fill a real waterbed up really, really well, but you couldn't do retakes," Kay said. “We put a lot of time into the design of that scene and having spouts of water coming out as the killer stabs and misses the girl,” Overton added. “It really plays into those sort of cheesy teen moods, with the girl dolling herself up, oblivious to the danger.”

## Release

*Totally Killer* premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 28, 2023. It was released on Prime Video on October 6, 2023.

## Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 86 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's consensus reads: “*Totally Killer* may not take full advantage of its promising conceit, but this time-traveling horror/sci-fi mashup is still enjoyable overall.” Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

## Gallery

### Behind the scenes

ClapperboardJamie Outfit DesignSweet 16 Killer Outfit Design
### Videos

Back to the Future but make it murder-y! - Totally KillerOkay, all set then! - Totally KillerThe Killer Throwback You've Been Waiting For - Totally Killer - Prime VideoDance like all four Mollys are watching. - Totally KillerOh, hey...dad??? - Totally KillerStuck the landing on this one, no notes. - Totally KillerTotally Killer Sneak Peek - Prime VideoIt's not 2023 anymore... - Totally KillerNew To Prime Video October 2023 - Prime VideoUm… what’s going on here? 🔪🩸 - Totally KillerTotally Killer - Official Red Band Trailer - Prime Video
## External links

* *Totally Killer* on Prime Video
* *Totally Killer* on the Sweet 16 Killer Podcast
* *Totally Killer* on the Internet Movie Database

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *Totally Killer* First Look: Kiernan Shipka Toplines Time Traveling Horror-Comedy From Prime Video, Blumhouse
2. ↑ *Totally Killer* (15)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Olivia Holt, Kiernan Shipka, Julie Bowen & Randall Park Are ‘Totally Killer’ In Prime Video & Blumhouse Slasher Comedy
4. ↑ Totally Killer
5. ↑ Amazon Studios Pacts With Blumhouse TV For Eight Thematically-Connected Movies
6. ↑ In Production – Vancouver
7. ↑ Where Was Totally Killer Filmed? Kiernan Shipka’s Latest Slasher Flick!
8. ↑ Everything to Know About the *Totally Killer* Filming Locations and Sets
9. ↑ *Totally Killer*
10. ↑ *Totally Killer*
11. ↑ *Totally Killer*