✨ Introduction: When Horror Meets 2000s Nostalgia
In an era where cinema constantly tries to innovate by blending genres, Totally Killer arrives as an attempt to combine the suspense of slasher films with the complexity of time travel.
Directed by Hannah MacPherson and released on Netflix on October 30, 2024, the movie presents an exciting premise: what if you could travel back in time to prevent a brutal murder?
With a nostalgic setting rooted in the early 2000s and a charismatic young cast, the production had everything to stand out. However, throughout its 91 minutes, it delivers a narrative that, while fun at times, stumbles over clichés and lacks depth.
🕰️ Synopsis: A Time Travel Mission to Change the Future
The story follows Lucy, played by Madison Bailey, a high school student who accidentally discovers a time machine that sends her back to 2003. In that year, her sister Summer (portrayed by Antonia Gentry) was brutally murdered by an unidentified serial killer.
Determined to change the course of events, Lucy does everything she can to save her sister and alter her family’s future. However, as with any story involving time travel, every action comes with unpredictable—and not always positive—consequences.
🎭 Characters and Performances: Charm That Can’t Save the Shallow Writing
Madison Bailey and Antonia Gentry deliver believable chemistry as sisters Lucy and Summer. Their emotional connection feels genuine, especially in the film’s most heartfelt moments filled with desperation, love, and pain.
Unfortunately, the script doesn’t do their talent justice. The characters are underdeveloped, with shallow personalities and little emotional growth. Supporting characters, who could have added richness to the plot, are forgettable and serve merely as background noise without meaningful relevance.
🔪 The Slasher That Doesn’t Scare: Lacking Tension and Originality
If you expected a classic slasher experience, Totally Killer falls short. The murder scenes are visually and emotionally underwhelming, lacking the suspense and thrill typical of the genre.
The masked killer—an essential element in any slasher—feels generic and fails to be threatening. The absence of surprising plot twists or well-executed jump scares makes the film predictable and, at times, tedious.
📺 Setting and Nostalgia: Visually Fun but Superficial
The early 2000s setting is undeniably one of the movie’s strongest visual appeals. With flip phones, iconic posters, fashion trends, and that analog charm, the film succeeds—at least partially—in evoking nostalgia.
However, this aesthetic serves more as a visual gimmick than a narrative tool. The soundtrack, despite featuring hits from the era, feels poorly integrated and misses the chance to become a powerful storytelling element.
⏳ Time Travel: Wasted Potential
Time travel stories usually generate high expectations. This theme offers the chance to explore existential dilemmas, paradoxes, moral conflicts, and the psychological impact of altering the past.
Unfortunately, Totally Killer takes an overly simplistic approach. The film avoids engaging with interesting concepts like the butterfly effect, the moral weight of changing history, or even the emotional toll of revisiting traumatic events. The consequences of Lucy’s actions in the future are treated superficially, with no depth or meaningful exploration.
🎞️ Recycled Formula: The Film’s Real Villain
It’s impossible to watch Totally Killer without feeling like you’ve seen this movie before—and not in a nostalgic way. The script follows a tired formula typical of teen horror films from the 2000s and 2010s, without updating or subverting any of the clichés.
The story unfolds predictably: the awkward protagonist, irrelevant friends, a mysterious killer, predictable jump scares, and a forced final plot twist that sadly fails to surprise.
🧠 Missed Opportunities for Deeper Reflection
Despite its playful premise, the film had plenty of opportunities to dive into meaningful topics for its young audience, such as:
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Guilt and grief: The desperate desire to fix the past and the feeling of helplessness after loss.
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Family bonds: How sibling relationships shape our identities.
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The cost of changing the past: Some things shouldn’t—or can’t—be altered, and pain often brings valuable lessons.
These themes are briefly touched on but never fully developed, leaving the story feeling shallow and emotionally hollow.
🚀 New Topic — Should This Become a Franchise?
Given its premise and open-ended narrative, Totally Killer leaves room for potential sequels. The time travel concept itself allows for new characters and different time periods to be explored.
But here’s the question: should this really become a franchise? If future installments offer a stronger script, better character development, a smarter approach to time travel paradoxes, and a bolder take on horror, it might work.
On the other hand, if the plan is to recycle the same shallow formula loaded with empty nostalgia and generic scares, any sequel is likely to repeat the original’s mistakes.
🎯 Conclusion: A Movie That Promises More Than It Delivers
Totally Killer is one of those movies that starts with an exciting promise but fails to deliver. With a charismatic cast and a premise that had everything to be captivating, the film gets lost in clichés, lazy solutions, and shallow exploration of its own themes.
For viewers looking for light entertainment with a teenage vibe and a sprinkle of 2000s nostalgia, it might do the job. But for those seeking intelligent horror that challenges the mind and delivers genuine thrills, disappointment is almost guaranteed.
⭐ Final Rating: 2.5/5
A movie that could’ve been much more but settles for being forgettable. It’s the kind of film you watch on a random night—and probably forget the next day.