The Masked Killer In ‘Totally Killer’ Was Inspired By Rob Lowe’s Perfectly Haunting Face
Taking two of the most campy movie tropes (slasher and time-traveling) and combining them might seem a little too out there, but if you bring it to the 80s, then you’re in for a wild ride. The latest movie to tackle this trend is Amazon Prime‘s Totally Killer, a comedy/horror which stars The Chilling Adventures of Sabirna’s Kiernan Shipka as a teen who unintentionally goes back in time and must stop an infamous killing from taking place…while also befriending her mom as a high schooler. Like Back to the Future with more blood and weirder outfits.
In order to make the killers spooky (it’s a Blumhouse film, mind you) the team created a mask that looks like a cross between Beavis and Tom Cruise. With an earring. It’s chilling for sure.
Director Nahnatchka Khan explained that they needed the killer to resemble the era. “We landed on the idea of a handsome man being terrifying. Tony Gardner [and] our design team started pulling ’80s heartthrob references, like Kiefer Sutherland and Rob Lowe and Dolph Lundgren, and even Johnny Bravo, and then exaggerated it and made the teeth oversized. The idea [was] that the last thing you see is this beautiful smile as you’re being killed.” This could also be applied to a killer that targets dentists, but their idea seems a little more fun.
It seems pretty messed up to turn beloved icons like Rob Lowe and Johnny Bravo into terrifying figures, but then again, Jason made a normal hockey mask look terrifying, so context really matters here.