Totally Killer (2023)

Director: Nahnatchka Khan

Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Feels like I’ve been spending most of the last year having everyone I know recommend the film, but never quite making the time to get it done, outside of the tail end of our Beyond the Cabin in the Woods season.

Did I Like It: I’m going to start the review by saying I liked the film very much, but I recommend you stop reading this review and take that recommendation before I let loose with any of the film’s surprises.

Now I know why everyone has been recommending the film. I’ll admit that somewhere along the way I got this film conflated with Mandy (2018) or more likely Freaky (2020) and had no idea what I was going to be in for as things unfolded. That all being said, being surprised that a film is actually about time travel is one of my personal favorite experience to have a with a movie. To construct a movie whose pitch almost had to be Back to the Future (1985) meets Halloween (1978) not only feels like a winner, but would have guaranteed I would have forked over whatever resources I had to get the thing made, were I in that position, or I’d be secretly mad that I hadn’t come up with the idea first. I can only hope that I didn’t spoil the surprise for you.

That begin said, I think it wouldn’t be terribly controversial to say that the film succeeds more as a teen time travel fantasy-comedy, and less as a slasher. While the Sweet 16 Killer* has a better mask than Michael Myers does in most of the Halloween series, the killings often feel perfunctory. I never once feel the dread that Carpenter and company wield with such deceptive ease. This would doom the whole affair to be just another bland entry in the slasher genre, classier than anything spawned from Friday the 13th (1980), but less enjoyable than Scream (1996) or its sequels. Thankfully, it does wind up being one of the more satisfying time travel comedies in recent memory, more than living up to its obligations to be a riff on Back to the Future.

*Form dictates I identify the actor in the role here, but that would constitute at least something of a spoiler, to say nothing of the fact that I’m not sure I can succinctly answer that question at any given moment in the film.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)

Director: Nahnatchka Khan

Cast: Ali Wong, Randall Park, James Saito, Keanu Reeves

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, but…

Did I Like It: Also yes.

Nora Ephron is dead, and thus, I’m reasonably sure that there isn’t going to be much new to discover within the genre of the romantic comedy. That being said, if the right alchemy of a charming cast and genuine laughs—as it does in this film—then my mind can actually forget for long stretches of time that this is fitting into a tried and true format. 

These characters are my age, dealing with variations on the same problems I deal with in my life, which is another interesting layer to the modern romantic comedy. Whereas before, the Toms Hanks and Megs Ryan of the world maintained a distant association with my parents generation, I find it much easier to identify with these characters. And yes, that is even with nearly every major character is of a different ethnic background than myself. White people would have a far easier and more enjoyable time of it if they just got over their anxiety about deeper representation in film.

There are moments where the traditional beat leak through. At about the half-way mark when Sasha (Wong) and Marcus (Park) are finally in the relationship they were always meant to be in, it’s clear that more peril awaits them, but up until that point I’m having so much fun with the Keanu Reeves sub-plot, I hadn’t given it all a second thought.

And Reeves is an unbelievably fresh breath of air in the movie. I quietly wonder how thick the boundary between fictional Keanu and real Keanu actually is. It’s easily the zaniest part of the film, and it only more makes me excited for the forthcoming Bill and Ted Face the Music, and that Reeves still has those comedic muscles that he is itching to flex.