Summary
- Totally Killer is a love letter to 1980s movies like Back to the Future and the Halloween franchise.
- The ending of Totally Killer showcases themes of reconciliation and ending abusive cycles.
- Totally Killer explores time as linear, which informs its handling of time-travel concepts like the bootstrap paradox.
The following contains major spoilers for Totally Killer, now streaming on Prime Video.
In Prime Video’s Totally Killer, it’s quite apparent this is a love letter to horror and sci-fi. It has traces of Back to the Future, with young Jamie traveling back in time to 1987. Her goal is to stop the Sweet Sixteen Killer from murdering teens, so he doesn’t resume his spree and murder her mother, Pam, in 2023. The climactic battle is, as expected, on Halloween night.
It’s a major tribute to the Halloween franchise, with Jamie hoping that the final girl trope is broken by keeping as many victims alive. However, Totally Killer has a few twists and turns unravel to complicate her journey. Apart from trying to preserve the integrity of the timeline as best she can, Jamie soon discovers it’s not one, but two slashers she has to contend with in a bloody ending.
Totally Killer’s Ending Has Chris Meeting a Brutal End
Jamie is heartbroken to know her mother, Pam, and the victims in 1987 were mean girls. It’s why the first slasher, Doug, went on to kill these girls who bullied his ex-girlfriend, Trish, and drove her to die in a drunken accident. Jamie realizes, however, Pam had nothing to do with the bullying, so there’s no reason for Doug (her principal in the future) to have murdered her mother in 2023. Once Jamie’s crew kills Doug in the past, Chris is revealed as the second Sweet Sixteen Killer.
The 2023 podcaster used the same time machine as Jamie to hop back and kill her, so he could keep the mystique going and draw fame, similar to Poppy from Only Murders in the Buildings. He admits he wants to become immortal like Michael Myers. He finishes off the third victim, with the fight in the Quantum Drop ride that’s supposed to get Jamie home getting even scarier. Pam tries to help Jamie but gets stabbed and pushed out. Luckily, Jamie is able to muster strength and kill Chris, hoping when she gets back, all will be well.
When Jamie returns to her time, the future is indeed intact. But with many changes due to ripple effects, proving Totally Killer follows Loki’s time-travel rules. Pam is alive, thankfully, while Jamie has an older brother. He’s actually Jamie, while she’s now Colette. Pam’s relationship with her own mother is well again, suggesting she matured up quickly from being a mean girl. Amelia is alive too, affirming Chris didn’t kill her in 2023 when he co-opted her time machine. Amelia’s mother, Lauren, is also able to fill Jamie in on the timeline’s changes after helping her in 1987. It’s a very idealistic, happy ending, with Jamie confirming big risks bring big rewards.
Read Related Also: AOC and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik Get Into It On Capitol Hill Over Hamas – RedState
Totally Killer Is All About Reconciliation and Ending Abusive Cycles
The Pam drama is quite important because Jamie realized she was a mean girl to her mother in the present. The guilt of ignoring and abusing older Pam drove Jamie to avoid her on Halloween night, which is when Chris killed Pam. It’s why Jamie jumped back, only to learn Pam did the same to her grandmother. Jamie returns with a fonder appreciation for her parents, especially knowing that while she didn’t want them hooking up too early in 1987, it worked out, they had two kids and Pam has mended her own fences.
The theme of bullying resonated with Jamie big-time because while she mistreated Pam, she hated bullies in school. Seeing Pam and the victims abusing others hurt her, which is why Jamie tried to educate them all on kindness, social justice and not being elitists towards geeks and such. The fact they made fun of “Fat Trish” is a big statement on insensitivity, and ultimately, why the initially-gentle Doug broke bad. Jamie takes all these lessons with her, hoping to keep spreading the idea of being caring to each other in her timeline.
Totally Killer’s Ending Doesn’t Solve a Key Problem
Lauren became the Amelia in 1987 after Jamie filled her in on why she time-hopped. A bootstrap paradox did occur as Lauren used the info from the past — her own work that future Amelia worked on — to finish the new device Jamie needed to get home. But when future Lauren fills Jamie in on a lot of stuff in 2023, there’s a plot hole in that she never knew all of this info in regard to Jamie’s life.
Lauren tracks down a lot of stuff, keeping them in the time travel notebook, including why Randy would become principal. The bully/jock in the past assumes the role Doug would have as the latter is dead. But there’s no reason for Lauren to have kept track of Randy as she had no idea he’d be incompetent in the future Jamie came from. It’s a minor error that could have been solved with one scene of Jamie informing Lauren of every change down the line.
That may have been omitted to avoid Lauren doing things to enact more repercussions but again, it would be essential to affirm why Lauren knows how to correlate everything in a major before and after compendium. The Randy info is appreciated, though, because without the dead girls around, and knowing he helped turn Doug evil, he would get his own life in order and make amends for being part of the bullying crew.
Totally Killer is now available on Prime Video.
