Kaleidoscope resents its latest on Amazon/MGM’s & Blumhouse Television’s production of Totally Killer. Directed by Nahnatchka Khan, the film stars Kiernan Shipka, Julie Bowen, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, Kelcey Mawema, Kimberly Huie, Jonathan Potts, & Randall Park. Rated ‘R’, the movie has a running time of 1 hour, 46 minutes and is available for streaming on Prime Video. 

The exposition occurs in the hamlet of Vernon where three 16-year-old girls are murdered by the Sweet 16 killer over a period of 5 days in 1987. Each girl was stabbed 16 times on her 16th birthday. Transition to the present day when Jamie Hughes (Shipka) attends a concert with a friend while her mom, Pam (Bowen) remains home. It is learned that when Pam was a teenager, she was friends with all 3 girls who were murdered in 1987. While Jamie is at the movies, Pam is handing out candy. To the audience’s astonishment, Pam is murdered by the Sweet 16 Killer amid the above action. At the same time that Jamie is mourning her mom’s murder, she assists her friend, Amelia (Mawema), complete a ‘time machine’ that Amelia has made for her school project. During this time, reporter Chirs Dubasage (Potts) approaches Jamie to tell her about a note that the Killer brought to her mother that she never revealed to her daughter. It read, “You’re next, one day!” Thus begins a film that is a combination of Back to the Future, Halloween, & other similar films of both categories. 

Director Khan has taken the conceit of time travel & applied it to a movie that oscillates between comedy & slasher/horror. To her credit (with the aid of the screenplay by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, & Jen D’Angelo), she is mostly successful in balancing these 2 disparate genres. When the film is humorous, it is hilarious—with many belly-laughs from this viewer; when it is ‘slasher’, one yearns for a return to the jocular portions. The acting is routine in nature with 2 exceptions: Kiernan Shipka as Jamie & Kimberly Huie as Amelia’s teenage mom in 1987. They play their roles straight, leaving the intense laughter to arise from their ‘fish out of water’ & other comedy/horror tropes surrounding their continued befuddlement. The film’s cinematography, editing, & score are all streaming TV adequate, 

I give Totally Killer 8 out of 10 nuggets. It is a very satisfying experience that will be appreciated by Prime Video subscribers.