Totally Killer follows the story of a protagonist who travels to the past to stop a masked killer from committing murders and in turn saving her mother too. The story here is quite interesting given that it combines the slasher genre with the concept of time travel. But the story loses a little bit of its steam when it sways away from the slasher genre and instead focuses on being a chick-flick. The screenplay standing at just above a 100 minutes is taut and crisp but in trying to integrate multiple genres, it doesn’t exactly succeed all the way.

The drama does open in an interesting fashion wherein the setting is of a Halloween at a town which has seen a surge of murders in the past. There is a quirky tone to the proceedings with some of the antics on show but there is also ample amounts of tension with the atmospherics especially with respect to the Halloween season. You are introduced to the protagonist who is discouraged from venturing out by her mother who was witness to the murders during her school days. But her adamancy comes with a price when her mother is murdered by a masked killer who is now after her life. But the twist of fate allows her to transport to the 1980s wherein she now has a chance to put a stall to the killings and also save her mother. But things aren’t as smooth as she expects them to be.

The drama has a good premise but slowly the shift in the genre to a comedy and a tilted towards a chick-flick just sucks the tension away from the drama. I really did not mind the time travel bit(and the homage to Back To The Future was definitely there) and parts of the comedy did work too but what the mishmash of genres did was reduce the overall impact of the drama. The tension that was prevalent in the air at the beginning of the film just fizzled out in the middle because of the introduction of comedy. Yes, the vibrancy of the 80s is decently showcased but there needed to be a bit more urgency especially after the first murder takes place. The frivolous nature of the group doesn’t quite gel well with the mood that ought to have been for the drama. And that is the insufferable part of the film – the second act.

The drama does get a little better especially when it chooses to refocus on the killings, afterall that is what we had signed up for! The events leading up to the final act do bring the drama back on track to an extent although I would still have wished for things to have been further fleshed out. The revelation(s) at the end again did seem to be half-baked and it never quite gave me an impression that a guessing game needed to be played all along. The quirky ending was fine but the slasher genre fan in me was a little disappointed. Overall, the screenplay has its moments but never really rises to its full potential.