Kiernan Shipka Saves ‘Totally Killer’ From Being Dead on Arrival
For those still drying their tears after Riverdale’s singular brand of time-traveling, genre-bending, wildly nonsensical thrills bowed its head earlier this year, throw your handkerchiefs in the trash. Then, light the whole bin on fire: The fun’s not over yet. Well, not exactly. There are no Riverdale characters in Totally Killer—Prime Video’s new teen slasher, out Oct. 6—but the movie does hold the same unpredictable essence that the CW’s final bastion of camp television did. The film also stars Riverdale-universe alum Kiernan Shipka, who held her own in the series’ spinoff The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Think of Totally Killer like Riverdale: The Movie, with just a smidgen of more logic—and I do mean a smidgen.
Shipka plays Jamie Hughes, a high school student in an otherwise sleepy town plagued by its brutal past every Halloween. The town is still haunted by the events of fall 1987, when three teens were viciously slain by the Sweet 16 Killer, known for stabbing his victims 16 times and leaving them for dead. The story has become infamous nationwide, attracting a deluge of tourists every year. It also triggers paranoia in Jamie’s mom, Pam (Julie Bowen), who went to school with the murdered girls. Surprise: The killer returns, kills Pam, and drives Jamie to go back in time to try saving her mother and all three of the original victims.
If that sounds at all familiar, it’s because Totally Killer wears its inspirations on its sleeve. The movie is frighteningly similar to 2015’s Final Girls, which also follows a daughter trying to save her mother from a slasher while stuck in another reality. It also has shades of Freaky, Happy Death Day, Back to the Future, and, yes, Riverdale. While these parallels don’t necessarily hinder the film, they do make its plot feel hackneyed. The movie has trouble distinguishing itself enough from its influences, falling back too often on the safety of recycled humor. But when Totally Killer leans into shamelessness, it becomes a piece of frivolous genre fluff amusing enough to justify its own existence.