The Totally Killer Trailer Puts Sabrina's Kiernan Shipka In A Time Traveling Slasher Movie

It's tough to imagine a more challenging job these days than to come up with an original, high-concept movie involving time travel. For one thing, the industry is pretty much drowning in scripts relying on this tried-and-true gimmick, making it that much more difficult to separate oneself from the rest of the pack. For another, any project will be doomed from the start with comparisons to all-time classics like "Back to the Future," "Groundhog Day," and more. So what's a filmmaker to do? The trailer for the upcoming Prime Video and Blumhouse movie, "Totally Killer," suggests one possible approach: embrace the high expectations, fully lean into the self-aware humor, and go as far as the clever script and killer cast (pun most definitely intended, I'm sorry to say) will take you.

In what can only be described as "Back to the Future" meets "The Final Girls" with a pinch of "Happy Death Day," the premise of "Totally Killer" puts a new spin on a very familiar premise. And, intriguingly, it seems to bring a much more overtly comedic tone that should make this a go-to watch during sleepovers for years to come. The official synopsis goes like this:

Thirty-five years after the shocking murder of three teens, the infamous "Sweet Sixteen Killer" returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. Seventeen-year-old Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) ignores her overprotective mom's (Julie Bowen) 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 (Olivia Holt) to take down the killer once and for all, before she's stuck in the past forever.

Check out the trailer below!

With spooky season fast approaching, leave it to the horror-loving minds over at Blumhouse to make the seemingly no-brainer choice of kickstarting the marketing for their high-profile horror movie just in time for Halloween. (As recent high-profile disappointments have shown, this isn't as obvious as we would think.) Thankfully, "Totally Killer" sure seems to be channeling the spirit of the occasion ... with an '80s twist and plenty of "Back to the Future" references. (Yes, in case you were wondering, that "Mamacita" gag is 100% a riff on Marty McFly's awkward run-in with his dad George.)

Directed by Nahnatchka Khan ("Fresh Off the Boat," "Always Be My Maybe") from a script by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, "Totally Killer" boasts an impressively stacked cast led by the breakout star of "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," Kiernan Shipka. She's joined by Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Stephi Chin-Salvo, Anna Diaz, Jeremy Monn-Djasgnar, Ella Choi, Kelcey Mawema, Liana Liberato, Nathaniel Appiah, and Jonathan Potts. Oh, and let's give some love to two veteran actors who prove they fully understand the assignment in Julie Bowen, the overprotective mom of the story, and Randall Parks as a skeptical small-town cop.

Genre fans will be pleased to know "Totally Killer" is rated R for "bloody violence, language, sexual material, and teen drug/alcohol use." Of course, we would've preferred to see a sure-to-be crowd-pleaser like this on the biggest screen possible. But viewers can expect the slasher-comedy to hit Prime Video streaming on October 6, 2023.