A clunky script and some obvious jokes don’t kill this fun take on the slasher genre.

In terms of slasher genre mashups of the last few years, we’ve had Groundhog Day meets a slasher movie, real teens accidentally enter a slasher movie, and whatever Scream 5, 6, and probably 7 are trying to do with the genre. This is Back to the Future meets the slasher genre. It’s a pretty fun core concept.

Modern teen Jamie, played by Kiernan Shipka, is tired of her overprotective parents Pam and Blake, played by Julie Bowen and Lochlyn Munro as adults and Olivia Holt and Charlie Gilespie as teens. Back in the late 80’s a serial killer murdered three of Pam and Blake’s friends. Ever since they’ve been paranoid about further attacks by that masked serial killer. Well the killer returns and Jamie uses the time machine that her friend built in order to travel back in time to the 1980’s and stop the killer before he ever attacked in the first place.

Now if you had a problem with that description so did I. For me it’s the part where a high school sophomore built a time machine. Yes, the mechanics of time travel in this movie are very dumb and very convoluted. It creates a lot of dumb plot problems for the movie. How did this teenager make a working time machine? Oh she got the designs from her mother… who designed it when she was in high school. So the movie hinges on us believing that two teenage geniuses designed and build a time machine. I wouldn’t make such a big deal about this if it wasn’t such a big deal to the movie.

But let’s get over that because once you get over that hurdle there’s some fun stuff to enjoy. There are some good jokes to be had at the responsible modern teen trying to deal with the out of control 80’s teens. The contrast between our modern youth with the wild bullying antics of the past had some good laughs. The contrast between marijuana of the 80’s and modern legal marijuana is drawn to very funny effect. The fact that one character knows that they’re in a slasher movie and the others don’t is always a funny concept.

The stunt work here is the real highlight though. When the slasher attacks, it always invovles some incredible stunts. The killer throws a girl over a railing and down some stairs to unbelievable effect. The teens get pushed through doors and windows and the hits always land. The choreography and the stunt teems on this movie were top notch. That was my favorite part of the movie. The stunt team was giving it their all.

Another thing I found really funny, and this is just me and my weird observation. A lot of characters smoke cigarettes in this movie, and they do it in the most conspicuously awkward manner possible. Nobody holds a cigarette like that. They are puffing constantly. It feels like they’ve never seen someone hold a cigarette or smoke before. It’s so obviously weird and award and it made me laugh throughout.

So all in all, it’s pretty good. It has a lot of stumbling blocks, but I had a good enough time with it. It’s not particularly scary, but it has some great stunt work. The laughs will vary depending on how much you like gen x vs. gen z humor. All in all it wasn’t the most movie I’ve watched for an October marathon.

Its my cup of tea B