Totally Killer (2023)-- Ending Explained with Spoilers

 

Plot: After the Sweet Sixteen Killer returns and kills her mother, Jamie accidentally travels back in time and gets a chance to stop the killer.

The eighties were considered to be a cool time. Many will claim that the eighties was when we got the best of movies, and the best of music.

After watching TOTALLY KILLER, you will realize that the eighties was pretty wild.

TOTALLY KILLER is another offering from Blumhouse and yet another introduction to a serial killer after the Bayfield Babyface Killer in Happy Death Day.

Now interestingly, both movies had a similar theme. Happy Death Day dealt with Tree reliving her birthday because the Babyface Killer keeps killing her and she has to stop him by finding out his true identity.

After Ghostface, there appears to be several attempts made to create an iconic villain.

Does the Sweet Sixteen Killer make the cut? Is he so terrifying that he could be part of a franchise?

TOTALLY KILLER is a fun slasher movie that will keep you invested throughout. There's no scientific jargon to confuse you or forced jokes that hardly force a chuckle.

TOTALLY KILLER is totally fun. But when it comes to pulling off the perfect twist to reveal the identity of the killer, the movie fails. You will know who the killer is from the beginning and sadly, the movie does give a major hint regarding the movie Scream and how it had two killers.

Apart from that Totally Killer is an enjoyable movie and perfect for those who shy away from gory slasher movies.

TOTALLY KILLER Plot

In a town called North Vernon, the narrator talks about three murders that took place 35 years ago in 1987.

The girls who were killed were Tiffany, Marissa and Heather. The three were sixteen years old and stabbed sixteen times. The serial killers was then dubbed the Sweet Sixteen Killer.

The narrator is none other than true crime podcaster Chris Dubasage who further talks about the popularity of the Sweet Sixteen Killer mask that is popular on Halloween. We see kids wear a mask of a serial killer and wonder why their parents were okay with them pretending to be a ruthless killer.

We then meet Jamie who wants to go to a concert on Halloween but her mother, Pam, is super overprotective and tries to convince Jamie to stay home. Jamie even makes a remark about Pam being paranoid because her friends were murdered 35 years ago and it is totally not going to happen to her.

Pam finally relents but tells her husband Blake to drive Jamie. She receives a call from Chris but doesn't take it prompting a jealous reaction from Blake.

He is then treated like an Uber driver and tasked with dropping Jamie to her friend Amelia's house.

Jamie tries to make small talk with Lauren, Amelia's mother, who looks worn down. She has to go work at odd hours and is clearly not happy.

Jamie and Amelia get to hanging out while we see Pam dealing with trick r' treaters. When she finds a man wearing a sweet sixteen killer mask, she still opens the door, and realizes a little late that he isn't with a kid. She tries to close the door but is unsuccessful in her attempts.

The killer enters and Pam puts up a good fight considering she had anticipated an attack for years now  after her friends were killed. But the killer is stronger and manages to overpower her. He stabs her several times and leaves. Two teenagers in costumes enter the house, hoping for free candy and are shocked to discover Pam's bloodied body.

The police are called and Jamie is devastated, more so since her mother had said 'I love you' before leaving and Jamie had rolled her eyes at her.

At school, the principal, coach and the sheriff, Kara, come to talk to the students. All the other classmates keep staring at Jamie. The coach offers the best self-defense move: run.

Later, Jamie is questioned by Kara regarding Blake and Jamie realizes her father is being considered a suspect because of his jealous behaviour.

Jamie tells Kara off, blames her father for his inability to solve the sweet sixteen killer case thirty-five years ago, and walks away.

Jamie then runs into Chris who reveals that her mother was trying to solve the case herself after she received a note that told her that she would be next. Chris assures Jamie that he was only helping her mother.

Afterwards Jamie goes to help Amelia for the science fair that is being held at an abandoned amusement park. Amelia doesn't tell the other classmates yet that she has been working on a time machine. She has been using Lauren's diary to work on her machine that uses wifi but still doesn't work.

Jamie notices that Amelia has already inserted a date for the date of the first murder. Amelia reasons that the day she gets her time machine to work, she would stop the first murder and hence stop the sweet sixteen killer.

That night, Jamie is followed by the serial killer and she ends up at the amusement park. She hides in Amelia's time machine where the killers shows up and tries to stab her. He accidentally stabs the control panel, and the machine whirs into action. The serial killer is kicked out and Jamie finds herself back in time.

When Jamie exits the photo booth/time machine, she is bewildered to find herself in 1987. A woman, who is a heavy smoker, offers to drive Jamie to school to find Pam.

Jamie is initially apprehensive about getting into the car with a stranger but she soon finds that the eighties were a wild time and people barely cared about strangers and whether or not they had evil intentions.

Once at school, Jamie tries to give the admin some excuse about being an exchange student from Canada but the admin is the least bothered and hands Jamie her schedule.

First class: Gym.

Jamie is subjected to a terrifying game of dodge ball while wearing really skimpy shorts. She asks for Pam and her teammate tells her that everyone knows who Pam is, she is after all the meanest girl in school.

Enter: a teenage Pam with her hair all made up. Her friends are Tiffany, Marissa and Heather. The four are called Molly's because they are huge fans of Molly Ringwald.

Pam takes an instant dislike towards Jamie who is shocked her sweet, overprotective mother used to be a bully.

Jamie tries to get into the group without much success. When she realizes Tiffany will be murdered tonight, she goes about to stop it. First, she befriends a younger Lauren who keeps to herself. Lauren immediately believes Jamie and takes a look at the time machine.

Jamie realizes there is no wifi for the time machine to work and Lauren explains that Jamie does need to return to her time eventually.

Jamie then tries to crash a party and meets Randy and Doug who grew up to be the coach and principal, respectively. She also meets a younger Kara and finds that everyone was a bully in the eighties, except Doug who was a nerd.

Jamie gets thrown out of the party but is determined to stop the killer

She meets teen Blake and finds he used to be with Tiffany. When Tiffany is revealed to have had an affair with Eddie, she is dumped. Jamie tries to convince the other girls to be around Tiffany but Tiffany is already hooking up with Eddie in her parents' bedroom.

Now Tiffany was murdered in the garage but Jamie being in this timeline has changed the events.

Tiffany refuses to service Eddie which causes him to leave when she is in the bathroom. When Tiffany returns, she is murdered by the killer. 

In the current timeline, Amelia tries to convince the police and Blake that Jamie has travelled to the past but no one believes her.

Chris overhears and immediately involves himself in the whole time machine business. As Jamie changes things in the past, Chris also begins to remember since everyone in town has been to high school with the other and he too was at the party where Tiffany was murdered.

Amelia explains how Jamie is changing the past events and they see a photograph in which Jamie had left a message wherein she instructs Amelia about there being a requirement for an extra metal conductor.

Meanwhile, Jamie lies to Pam about being  psychic and that the girls are in trouble and should totally not go into the cabin in the woods where Marissa was killed. Pam promises not to go to a cabin in the woods but wants to know more about her future. Jamie reveals that Pam and Blake get together.

Now Blake had told Jamie that they got together only after college and had they got together before they would not have worked out. Jamie tries to separate teen Blake and teen Pam but then it turns out that Pam always had a thing for Blake.

Jamie goes to sleep in the car and wakes up to find that the condo they were supposed to have gone to is the very same one where Marissa was murdered.

Later, Randy, Blake, and Kara also join in. Randy immediately throws Jamie out. That is when the killer enters and kills Heather instead. Jamie is baffled because Marissa was supposed to die instead.

Lauren tells Jamie that she needs to leave for her time or risk being stuck in the past forever. They decide to use the TV signals used during live telecasts to power the time machine.

In the present, Amelia is found unconscious and Chris is missing.

In the past, Jamie gets everyone to group together and plan to capture the serial killer at the amusement park.

TOTALLY KILLER Ending Explained

The group manages to knock the killer out and Kara tells everyone that see, she wasn't the killer after all.

The mask is removed and it turns out to be Doug.

Doug's motive was that he wanted to kill the girls who had bullied his girlfriend Trish during a sleepover which resulted in the girl leaving the house with a disturbed mind and getting into an accident.

Doug blamed the girls present there for his girlfriend dying and wanted vengeance.

Jamie can't believe her mother would dp such a heinous deed. She believes her mother was involved because Pam was murdered thirty-five years later.

Now, Jamie should have questioned why the killer hadn't gone after Pam in the eighties instead.

She had also been referencing the Scream movie which had two killers. The hint was already in place.

Just when the friends are coming to terms with Doug being the killer, another man in a sweet sixteen killer mask appears and starts stabbing.

And so Heather gets killed too. The original three murders take place and Jamie was unable to stop that.

A news reporter is on the scene and it so happens he is Chris' father. Which means Chris is just a podcaster while his father was a respected TV reporter. The killer stabs the reporter and runs away. The cameras do not stop rolling. It is the eighties after all.

Jamie gets into the Quantum Drop ride which was what was going to be used to transport Jamie to the present provided she stayed in tye center of it. She had initially tried to make excuses about using it but the ride operator was nonchalant about the whole thing. It is the eighties!

Jamie starts the machine in order to escape but the killer gets in and so does Pam who feels a strange connection with Jamie and the ride.

Blake had once told Jamie how he had found out they were pregnant with her after they had gotten off the ride and Pam wouldn’t stop vomiting.

The killer stabs Pam but Jamie manages to throw her out just in time. The forceful speed of the ride, removes the killer's mask and show Chris's face.

No surprises there.

Chris talks about how he couldn't gain popularity and wanted the murders to take place and bring alive the sweet sixteen killer legend to go viral.

Jamie manages to kill Chris after she learns that he had killed Pam and sent her the threatening note to create a buzz about the killer.

Jamie returns to her time and runs to her house. Pam and Blake are right there and she is happy to find out that she had saved her mother.

Amelia and Lauren come to see her. They take her out and explain that things in the present have now changed thanks to what she did in the eighties.

Jamie starts eyeing a young man who Pam calls Jamie. Lauren explains that Blake and Pam got together after school instead of college and had a son first. Jamie asks why her parents named both kids Jamie. Turns out Jamie's name is now Colette.

Lauren gives Colette a book of everything that has changed now.

In the after credits we learn that Randy became the principal instead of Doug since he died in the eighties.

Chris became traumatized after seeing his father die on live TV. He is in India in a monsastery. Lauren notes that she has been keeping an eye on him.

The movie ends.

Totally Killer is an entertaining movie but don't expect the time travel sequence to make any sense. The story also doesn't focus on the mechanics of the time machine nor on the killer's identity. The focus in on reliving the fun time of the eighties and how a girl from the present would fare in the eighties.

The mystery could have been better though and it was pretty obvious from the start that Chris was involved.

Nevertheless Totally Killer is a fun movie for horror-slasher fans.

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