Prime Time: Totally Killer (2023)

While I completely understand the shorthand that people have used to describe Totally Killer - most people refer to it as Back To The Future crossed with Scream - I have to start this review by saying that it's also being slightly oversold by people who are keen to recommend it to other horror fans. This is a fun film, and should be enjoyed by anyone who enjoyed the likes of Happy Death Day and Freaky, but it's not quite as sharp or clever as it could be.

Kiernan Shipka plays Jamie, a young woman who is fed up of her over-anxious mother (Pam, played by Julie Bowen) and uncool father (Blake, played by Lochlyn Munro). Pam has good reason to be anxious though, especially around Halloween. She is the lone survivor of a killing spree 35 years ago that left her friends dead. And the killer may still be looking to get "the one that got away". One thing leads to another, and Jamie ends up making use of a time machine to head back to 1987, where she hopes to help the teenage version of her mother (Olivia Holt). It turns out that her mother was quite a Mean Girl type in her schooldays, which makes it tougher for Jamie to befriend her and save some lives. She also needs the help of Lauren Creston (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson) to fix what is now a broken time machine. How will Lauren known what to do? The machine was based on her own ideas, made by her future daughter (Amelia, played by Kelcey Mawema).

Directed by Nahnatchka Khan, her second film after the excellent Always Be My Maybe, the emphasis here is on entertainment. Everything is bright and lively, and any excuse to highlight the '80s aesthetics and attitudes is pounced upon. Although the script was written by three people - David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo - it feels like everyone worked together well and knew what to do with the tone of the whole thing. It still surprises me, however, that there wasn't a bit more to this, either in terms of the joke count or the potential time-travel repercussions. While perfectly enjoyable in the moment, Totally Killer is almost instantly forgettable. And I am not sure the final scenes actually work, but I would probably need a large whiteboard and a week with Christopher Nolan to try properly piecing it all together.

Shipka is decent enough in the lead role, although she feels quite interchangeable with a number of other potential actresses, and the film spends most of the runtime with her and the excellent Holt. Johnson does well, and should be thankful that she gets to do enough to make an impact, which is more than can be said about so many of the other supporting players. While nobody is bad, it’s hard to always match them up with their apparently predestined role in the unfolding chain of events.

I should say that one of my gripes with the film is somewhat addressed by the script, with the main character able to convince people of her time-travelling mission simply and quickly enough to get back to the slasher plot strand. This is not a complex sci-fi movie. It is a film aiming to make the most of a great concept, and it does a decent job of that.

There could have already been more though. More tunes from the ‘80s, more wonderful fashion choices, more bloodshed and kills, and more jokes layered throughout each scene (few things made me laugh more than our lead’s first encounter with an ‘80s mother, inconsiderately hotboxing her kids with cigarette smoke as she drives around town).

Most people should enjoy this. It’s a good time. It’s just not the total success it could have been.

7/10

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Let's Scare Julie (2020)

Okay, you're best not to go into Let's Scare Julie looking forward to something presented in what is supposed to look like one long take. It doesn't manage to keep that up, which wouldn't be so bad if the edits didn't feel so unnecessary, as if someone had just forgotten it was supposed to be a gimmick used to sell the movie. You're also best not to go into Let's Scare Julie if you're looking forward to a superior horror movie. It is not. I have seen some people praise this, and it is one of those instances when I start to worry that I have somehow seen some completely different movie from them.

The plot involves a group of girls having a sleepover, kind of. They seem to be fairly typical teenagers, in the way they don't care too much about the repercussions of teasing one another and plotting against others outwith their group. That leads to them heading across the road, to play a prank on a reclusive young woman named Julie. Emma (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson) stays behind though, looking after her little sister, Lilly (Dakota Baccelli). The prank doesn't go according to plan, which puts everyone in danger. Including Emma and Lilly.

There's a point near the start of Let's Scare Julie when you may get your hopes up that it has something interesting to say. Something that makes the grating performances and faux-gimmickry worthwhile. The girls are teasing Emma, and the dynamic seems to fluctuate between jokey camaraderie and a real streak of meanness. The prank at the heart of the movie is something that provides potential relief for Emma, a standard case of one victim having a breather while tormenters move on another victim. But these are Emma's friends, so the way they have been teasing her cannot be that bad. Can it?

Never mind though, the film doesn't stray too far down that path. Instead, writer-director Jud Cremata simply presents a horror film with too few scares, too little to care about, and too many moments that underline just how carelessly everything is thrown together. The most obvious example is the way in which the girls are jumping about and giggling one moment, telling each other they need to be very quiet as they sneak around the house the next, and then shrieking and making more noise later. It's incredibly insulting to viewers, and cannot be dismissed by shrugging and saying "black magic".

I don't want to be too rude to the young cast, which is why I am not naming more of the characters, or the actresses playing them (as this is almost an all-female cast), but it's worth mentioning that both Johnson and Baccelli are easily the best performers onscreen. Baccelli is also the youngest, so that may give you an idea of how I rated the others.

I struggle to think what Cremata was actually aiming for here. If he wanted to give viewers one of the more painful horror movies in recent years (not counting the million movies with the name Amityville or Krampus shoehorned into the title) then he succeeded. If the aim was something a bit different, and still scary, then he failed. Miserably. I could go on and on about every single thing that caused me annoyance, but that would end up being the kind of hyperbolic review I try to avoid. I just hope that some people trust me when I advise that this is absolutely not worth your time, unless you have to choose between this and some dross called The Amityville Krampus.

2/10

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