YMMV / Totally Killer

• Adorkable:
  • Doug is a hall monitor who is into video games and karate, enjoys reciting Little Known Facts, tries to sneak into the popular party with a chipper attitude, and is said to have once locked braces with his girlfriend while they were kissing.
  • Pam may be a Girl Posse mean girl in 1987, but even before she begins taking a level in kindness, she has some adorable moments of giddily crushing over Blake and being a Closet Geek who is worried about whether robots will take over the world one day like in the movies.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • With the reveal that Doug was the original killer, his actions as principal come into question. Was he just performing his principal duties in comforting Jamie, was he trying to cover his tracks or did he feel guilt that his original Roaring Rampage of Revenge inspired a copycat to kill someone’s who had always been kind to him?
  • Pam makes a few casually homophobic remarks as a teen, but in the altered timeline is perfectly accepting towards her gay son. Did she simply grow past her homophobic views, or change her outlook when her son came out? Or was she not particularly homophobic, at least not by the standards of her time and place, but sheltered and oblivious to how bigoted and hurtful her comments were as a teen, only to learn better and change her behavior?
  • Would Pam have participated in the bullying of Trish if she'd been on speaking terms with the others when they carried it out, even if she wouldn't have let Trish drive home drunk?
  • The Mollys seem to be clueless in how their actions led directly to Trish's death. Is this genuine callousness and/or cluelessness? Are they are on some level trying to bury the guilt by convincing themselves it wasn't their fault? Or do they know but just not care beyond not wanting to get in trouble? It's also possible this varies for each individual girl.
  • Is Norm really a neglectful father, or is Chris (who seems deeply attached his father as a teenager) just saying that due to jealousy about how much more successful than him his father is after his own reporting career turned out poorly? Or did his neglectful behavior start after he moved to a national level? Norm's just the lead reporter for a small-town news station in 1987 and would have far more time to spend with his family than he would as a nationally recognized reporter that travels all over the country.
  • Is the Sweet Sixteen Killer willing to kill Jamie (and her friends) for interfering with his plans in the 1987 scenes and narrowly failing, or is he deliberately stopping at just wounding them so they can't interfere?
  • Did Kara have legit reasons for suspecting Blake of being the Sweet Sixteen killer, or is Jamie right that she's just letting her personal dislike of him influence her investigation?
• Awesome Music: The film sports a stirring and mood-appropriate soundtrack of mostly eighties music. The highlight of the soundtrack might be the rendition of "Let the Music Play" when the killer attacks Heather and Jamie, Blake, and Pam try to save her.
• Rooting for the Empire: Doug's Adorkable nature, Made of Iron martial artist skills, and only targeting a group of Asshole Victims cause some fans to not mind watching his rampage and be disappointed when he's Killed Off for Real. His cruel and self-centered copycat, on the other hand, attracts none of this sentiment.
• Spiritual Successor: "A horror-comedy slasher where a daughter goes back in time and fights the slasher villain that caused her mother's death" could describe either this film or The Final Girls.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Adult Doug only makes one short cameo in the 2023 scenes when many fans would have been interested in seeing him react to the copycat he inadvertently inspired.
  • The film could have paid more attention to 1987 Chris and his Used to Be a Sweet Kid moments to make the reveal of his future crimes more shocking, as he barely appears in 1987 and prior to the reveal about Doug, there was no reason to assume that Chris couldn’t be the original killer all along in a The Dog Was the Mastermind way.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The movie reveals halfway through that the changes in 1987 are altering the present day in real time causing a series of Mandela Effects. This potentially interesting subplot mostly limits to a few scenes with Lauren and Chris discussing the time machine and it mostly serves as a excuse to have the 2023 Chris in the climax.
  • Having Sympathetic Murderer Doug live long enough to meet his far worse time traveling copycat could have provided for a more chaotic and intense final battle and given 1987 Doug some moments of emotional range that he never gets onscreen.
  • The blood the sheriff laughs off as "DMA" could have been put in an evidence locker and then properly tested years later, but before the present, when Revisiting the Cold Case.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Jamie is an Action Girl Fish out of Temporal Water out to stop the murder of her mother, and she carries the role well. Nonetheless, there can be a sense that she'd stand out a lot more if not for the colorful cast of supporting characters in two different periods like Lauren and Amelia (who both invent time machines in their teens), 2023 Pam (Crazy-Prepared Action Mom), 1987 Pam (a Girl Posse Action Survivor who gets a lot of Character Development and enters into an early romance with her future husband based on knowledge of their future relationship), future rock star Eddie, Small Name, Big Ego "Well Done, Son" Guy podcaster Chris and his Living Legend Intrepid Reporter father, Adorkable karate trainee Doug, Made of Iron Big Man on Campus Blake, Lurch (a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold who recently lost a sibling), and Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass stoner Kara.

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