Totally Killer Director on Picking the Perfect Slasher Mask

Time travel movies got a slasher update this past week with the debut of Totally Killer, a new horror comedy from Blumhouse that was released exclusively on Prime Video. The film, from Always Be My Maybe director Nahnatchka Khan, is about a teenage girl who travels back to 1987 to stop a serial killer that returned to take her mother’s life in the present day. Like many classic slashers, Totally Killer‘s main villain has a very unique, very recognizable mask.

The Sweet Sixteen Killer dons a mask that’s meant to resemble a smiling man’s face, one with pearly white teeth, blonde hair, and one dangling earring. It’s a very distinct look, one that we haven’t seen from another slasher villain before. Khan recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how to find the right slasher mask.

“We went through a ton because, as you said, it’s everything. It’s got to feel unique, but it’s got to feel scary and that there’s a thinking behind it,” Khan explained. “And the thing that I loved was the idea of just a handsome man being terrifying. That’s the thing that I kept coming back to, and if we could land on what that looks like, it would not only feel scary in the way that we wanted but also feel a little relevant to today. Even though most of the movie takes place in the ’80s, there’s just something sinister about it in 2023 as well. So I wanted something that didn’t just feel like it lived in the ’80s. In this town where these murders happened, it’s the lore of the town and people dress up like the killer, and so I wanted that to feel current but also timeless. So we pulled a bunch of ’80s heartthrob references, and Tony Gardner and his team at Alterian put together many different versions until we landed on him.”

In an interview with EW, Khan went a little deeper about the very heartthrobs from the ’80s that helped influence the Sweet Sixteen Killer’s mask.

The mask “had to originate in the ’80s, so you have to have that nostalgic vibe, but in our movie people still dress up like the killer in present-day, so I wanted it to feel a little bit relevant,” Khan explained. “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.”

Totally Killer is now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.