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.