One of the most entertaining things about Nahnatchka Khan’s cheerfully blood-soaked comedy horror “Totally Killer” is the way it embraces the inherent implausibility and even ridiculousness of time-travel movies and slasher films, leaning into both genres with self-referential gusto to the point where we half-expect one of the characters to break the fourth wall and address us directly, reminding us not to take any of this least bit seriously.
This is “Back to the Future” meets “Scream,” with a sprinkling of “Hot Tub Time Machine,” “Big,” “Happy Death Day,” “Freaky” and “The Final Girls.” Director Khan (of “Fresh Off the Boat” and the fantastically entertaining 2019 rom-com “Always Be My Maybe”) and screenwriters David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo clearly have a love for the tropes of time-travel films as well as modern slasher movies, playing the material for about 70% laughs and 30% horror. It’s a mix that doesn’t always work, and at times the 1980s period-piece jokes are almost too easy, but the dialogue is snappy, the horror scenes are effectively staged, and the cast is terrific.
