In October, audiences scour theaters and streaming services looking for upcoming horror movies that can provide fresh scares. And while most of the best horror films get under our skin and truly terrify, some other classics thread the needle between horror and comedy, providing a needed laugh in between the bloody kills. In time, I believe that Nahnatchka Khan’s Totally Killer – available right now to anyone with an Amazon Prime Video subscription – will be viewed as one of those annual traditions, a movie like Happy Death Day or Freaky, that grows in stature the more that people see it. And part of the reason it works so well is the stellar performance by Olivia Holt, doing a spot on Julie Bowen.
Totally Killer is a time-travel horror movie, one that mashes the concept of John Carpenter’s Halloween with Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future. In the story, contemporary teenager Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) finds herself traveling back to 1987 so she can help her high school-aged mother (Olivia Holt) stop a serial killer who is about to attack their town. We meet Jamie’s mother in present day, and she’s played by Modern Family standout Julie Bowen. When we got Nahnatchka Khan on the ReelBlend podcast to discuss Totally Killer, I brought up Holt’s impersonation and asked about the preparation for it. And the director explained:
It’s her. I mean, it’s Olivia. She had that on day one on set. We cast Olivia first. Julie was cast after her. So once Olivia found out it was Julie… that’s what I mean about (the young cast) coming, like me thinking, ‘I gotta come in and be like, OK, here are some references on Julie.’ Like, (Olivia) came down. She knew what she was going to do, and she did it in a way that, again, like… I’m glad you said on the second watch. Because it’s not in the forefront of the performance. But when you get to go back, there’s a lot happening in this movie, as we’ve said, there’s a lot of things at play, but then when you get to go back and kind of re-watch and (appreciate) the subtleties of the performance. Yeah. I think it’s just a testament to her. I mean, she just killed it.
Julie Bowen has a distinct rasp to her voice. It’s very natural, and necessary when playing a younger version of the actress in character. You get a sense of how good Holt is as a young Bowen in the trailer for Totally Killer, which I’m including below:
As good as Olivia Holt is in Totally Killer, it’s Kiernan Shipka who holds the movie together. She’s the bridge between the modern sensibilities of a 2023 slasher movie, and the rough-edged coarseness of ’80s comedy. It’s one of the things that stood out when one of our writers (who doesn’t love horror) watched Totally Killer and came away raving. Make sure that you listen to Nahnatchka Khan’s full interview on ReelBlend, for a deep dive into this movie, and her process:
And make sure to keep track of everything that’s opening between now and the end of the year by checking our Upcoming 2023 Movie Releases guide, which we update often.