“Time Cut”: A Slasher About Time Travel, With Too Much Deja Vu | Review

Ladies and gentlemen, slashers with the masked killer continue their comeback into our lives. But we’re in 2024, so we can expect some twists, like a combination of different genres. Netflix’s “Time Cut” takes a novel idea until recently, but it has been done several times in recent years. The movie combines the slasher with time travel movies, with a girl who goes back in time to her not-so-cheerful high school days and tries to prevent her sister from being murdered by a serial killer.

So it’s true that there are more holes in the script here than in a Swiss cheese shop, that the horror here is very implied and sometimes childish, and that the characters are far from realizing their potential. The film works partially, maybe even very partially, but still manages to be enjoyable at times – especially for those who find guilty pleasure in a movie description that includes the words “slasher,” “masked killer,” and “high school,” along with a late-night hour that invites silly, non-committal movies.

The Plot Of Time Cut: What Is Time Cut About?

The fact that “Time Cut” corresponds with several genres should not surprise anyone who has seen some slashers that have flooded the big screen, especially the small screen, in recent years. If we once were content with stupid murders of stupid characters by a killer with a stupid motive, today, these elements are also present in current slashers. However, there is still a twist here that can connect the film with other works or even genres.

It can be a time loop that needs to be resolved (for example, in the “Happy Death Day” films), parallel universes (“It’s a Wonderful Knife” which is, as you know, the slightly striped horror version of Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece “It’s a Wonderful Life”), identity swapping (“Freaky,” which is the funny horror version of “Freaky Friday”), going back in time (“Totally Killer” from Amazon Prime Video, which is much more reminiscent of the current film), parallel timelines (as in the “Fear Street” trilogy by R.L. Stine, also on Netflix) – and much more.

“Time Cut” is reminiscent of some of these films, even if it tries to stand independently. The film opens with a scene typical of teen horror films, in which we are introduced to several characters, and mainly to the fact that they are dealing with the murder of several friends by an unidentified killer. The central character in this timeline is the beautiful Summer Field (Antonia Gentry from “Ginny & Georgia” on Netflix), who finds herself in a life-and-death struggle with a masked killer. This encounter ends in murder and a cut that takes us to the credits and the main plot.

We jump forward 20 years and meet Lucy (Madison Bailey from Netflix’s “Outer Banks,” “Black Lightning”), Summers’ sister. She was born two years after her sister’s murder, in what we later learn was a kind of compensation for the grieving parents. Lucy dreams big and gets accepted to an internship at freaking NASA. She has difficulty telling her parents because she feels like she doesn’t quite live up to their expectations and is standing in the shadow of her late sister.

But then the twist happens. Lucy discovers a strange-looking time machine in a barn that takes her back to 2003, a few days before her sister’s murder. She teams up with Kevin, a nerdy guy who doubles as her sister’s friend (the lovable Griffin Gluck from Netflix’s “Locke & Key,” and also a few comedies like “Big Time Adolescence,” “Tall Girl” and “Why Him?” in which he mainly played a likable kid), who does her homework but just dreams of doing other kinds of homework for her, whatever the hell that means.

Time Cut: When Horror Meets Time Travel… Again

Very quickly, the two realize that they have to return Lucy to her reality, which includes some strange explanations about time machines and strange materials. If possible, it would also be nice to prevent the murders, to find out who is hiding behind the mask and why the hell he is doing it. The problem is that, as in every time-travel movie ever made, there is a fear that any change in reality could cause a catastrophe, possibly related to butterflies, hurricanes, and Ashton Kutcher. At one point, Lucy raises another, more ethically complex dilemma: whether to save her sister when she knows that it could mean that she will not be alive. After all, the only reason her parents brought another child into the world was to cope with the loss of their beloved child.

In the end, there are some murders, which are done very delicately, without horror, and almost without blood. There is also a particular solution that probably contains a lot of holes and illogicality because that’s how it is in these types of movies. These are the film’s weaknesses right from the start, but it can still cover them up if the film is enjoyable. Here, “Time Cut” manages to improve its situation a bit.

Is Time Cut Similar To Totally Killer?

The truth is that it’s very easy to argue that despite the idea that may have been original a few years ago, “Time Cut” doesn’t innovate too much. You may feel that “we’ve been in this movie before, even not so long ago.

In 2023, we saw the enjoyable “Totally Killer,” in which a 17-year-old girl accidentally goes back in time to the 1980s and tries to prevent her mother from being murdered by a masked killer. This time, the girl goes back to the early 1920s and tries to stop her older sister from being murdered by a masked killer. For some reason, the mask looks similar between these two films (apparently, there are fashion trends among masked killers as well).

Before you jump out of your chair and claim copying or lack of originality, it’s important to note that filming for “Time Cut” reportedly began in July 2021, about a year before “Totally Killer” was announced. Hence, the film comes out “innocent,” at least in that respect. Unless the screenwriter has already seen “Totally Killer” and somehow managed to find a time machine that will take him back a few years so that he can write a film with an idea that seems original.

The similarities between the films and other cross-genre slashers we’ve seen in recent years shouldn’t surprise us because horror films are often made according to fashion. You can understand this connection even more by looking at the list of creators. “Interrupted Time” was directed by the relatively unknown Hannah McPherson, who has so far made primarily short films, the series “T@gged” and a few episodes in other series, such as “School Spirits” and “Into the Dark.”

McPherson wrote the script with Michael Kennedy, the screenwriter of “It’s a Wonderful Knife” and “Freaky, which we mentioned earlier. The list of producers also includes Christopher Landon, the director and one of the writers of the films “Happy Death Day,” “Freaky,” and several other charming films in recent years, such as “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” and “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.”

In other words, some of the leading names here know their job and have other slashers on their resumes that we can call “genre-crossing.” The main problem is that “Time Cut” is too familiar. It reminds us of some of the films mentioned in plot, atmosphere, and style, but it stands a little behind them regarding quality. The dialogues are, in some cases, unimpressive. I found the photography far from perfect (some scenes had problematic lighting, and others looked to me too much like they were shot in a studio and not in an actual location).

There were some holes in the plot, only a few scenes really had tension in them, and the film had almost too little horror. Towards the end of the film, a specific revelation of who is the killer in “Time Cut” may look surprising, even if those experienced in horror films can figure it out.

Buffy Meets Avril: Back To The ’90s

Still, “Time Cut” passed me an hour and a half, during which I didn’t look at the clock too much. In films of this kind, we naturally expect nostalgia, which, in this case, will take us back to the early 2000s. You can see it – or more precisely, hear it – in the soundtrack, which includes diegetic and non-diegetic songs (that is, from within the film’s inner world and outside it, in the script) by Hilary Duff in her early career Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, and “Teenage Dirtbag,” which seems to take us back in time to silly teen comedies of the early 1920s, such as “Loser” with Jason Biggs and the beloved “The New Guy.”

Alongside this, you will also find some more recent works, such as “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” by Olivia Rodrigo from 2023, perhaps because it deals with issues such as social anxiety and difficulty fitting in, which are very prominent in the film.

The soundtrack is undoubtedly likable and even beyond, even for those who prefer different, louder, less childish music from the 2000s. However, it’s hard to say that the soundtrack contributes too much to the film and certainly not to its atmosphere of tension or horror. We have a soundtrack reminiscent of a teen comedy, but The jumps between it and scenes that are supposed to be more “realistic” and scary are too big.

The film sticks a little too closely to teen movies even in terms of the script, with the same characters of a-holes guys with long hair abusing nerds with glasses, slow motion in hallways full of students, a makeover scene that this time has to do with going back in time, and so on. I couldn’t spot a blonde cheerleader, a sexually permissive girl, a funny gay friend, a goth group, and Regina George among the masses of students standing around, but maybe I just wasn’t focused enough.

Is Time Cut A Funny Film?

Although this isn’t a horror-comedy in the complete sense, there are some good jokes related to going back in time and the characters’ lack of knowledge about the world in each timeline. For example, when the guy who believes in time travel a little too quickly tries to figure out if Arnold Schwarzenegger is president in 2023 and gets the answer “No, but there’s someone worse,” or when he asks if Paris Hilton is still hot, around the time her home-made tourist porn movie about Paris hit the world’s porn sites. The movie includes a few jokes, some successful and some not, about the role of social networks and their growth in recent decades. It’s also pretty easy to find a few Easter Eggs that correspond to the 90s: for example, the fact that Summer loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, judging by the Buffy poster hanging in her room, and her name happens to be reminiscent of Buffy’s last name (Summers).

There is also a focus on more serious issues, such as the scene in which Lucy explains why it is much easier for LGBT couples to date in our world today (On a side note, Bailey herself is pansexual, meaning that she has a sexual orientation and desire for people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex). This segment is relatively prosperous and not too progressive, at least in this writer’s opinion, and it adds some depth to the whole thing.

Staying Alive In An Emotionless World

The problem is that scenes of this kind are few and far between, and it would have been possible to strive for much more emotional development and identification, considering the issues at stake here and the dilemmas the characters are thinking about. In “Happy Death Day 2,” for example, we saw one of the most moving scenes I remember from horror movies in recent years – that meeting between Tree and her mother in a restaurant, when it brought me to the brink of tears (I’m personally not an example, because I cried during most of the movie “The Wild Robot,” but from the talkbacks on YouTube I understood that there were other viewers who got moved by this scene between Tree and her mother). So it’s true that scenes of this kind are infrequent in horror movies and require a combination of a clever script, excellent acting, and well-made cinematography (say, the soundtrack), but you can always expect it.

“Time Cut” lacks most of these elements, and the emotional effect is almost non-existent. Bailey is probably trying her best. I saw charisma, comic sense, and sex appeal in her, which are mandatory requirements to hold a movie today (even a horror movie, damn Academy, who doesn’t think that actors in horror films should get awards from time to time). But in the end, we get a character with too few facial expressions combined with dialogues that tend to be simple to weak and don’t always align with the script.

On the one hand, Lucy is a likable and slightly cynical character, with a mischievous smile and witty antics combined with a somewhat depressed and slightly bored expression, traits that I easily relate to. Madison, a much more talented actress than this role, conveys these feelings. On the other hand, when she reacts in a kind and slightly cynical way, with a mischievous smile and a somewhat depressed and bored expression, to murders that happen before her eyes, it’s a problem. When she hesitates about whether to save her sister and risk her existence in a way that is more reminiscent of someone thinking about what to have for lunch and which dish will look best in a story, the script loses its credibility.

So it’s true that in the end, most things are resolved. We get some murders (really not enough, and unfortunately out of frame or in a way that is implied and too subtle), the discovery of the murderer (not really surprising), and also a kind of happy ending (not much logical, from a scripting and probably scientific point of view). The road there is relatively enjoyable, even if it includes many failures and bumps, some of which stem from the fact that a large part of the cast’s direction, script, and acting are not tight enough.

Should You Watch Time Cut?

The bottom line is that you can give “Time Cut” a chance. Indeed, it is a pretty good choice if you’re looking for some time to pass the night or a film without much commitment and logic, which you can go to with very low expectations and watch while your brain is in a metaphorical coma. As someone addicted to slashers or concept films, even when they are average, at best – and usually, this is the case – I can mark “V” on another slasher and wait for the next cross-genre combination.

How about, for example, a slasher in which a young woman goes back in time to a parallel universe and discovers that she has switched identities with someone who is her complete opposite, who also kills someone close to her, but then discovers what would have happened in the world if she hadn’t switched identities with him, and that she must learn how to switch back to survive her birthday loop and not be murdered by someone in an adult mask, with a baby’s face and blond hair, who uses a particularly wonderful knife? This idea could be original and groundbreaking. Netflix, your choice.

Time Cut – Frequently Asked Questions

When was Time Cut made? 2024

When was Time Cut released? October 30, 2024

Who directed Time Cut? Hannah MacPherson

Who played in Time Cut? Madison Bailey is in the leading role. The cast of “Time Cut” includes Antonia Gentry, Griffin Gluck, Michael Shanks, Megan Best, Samuel Braun, and more.

Who wrote Time Cut? Hannah MacPherson and Michael Kennedy

How long is Time Cut? About 90 minutes

Where was Time Cut filmed? United States

What do the reviews say about Time Cut? The film currently has a 5.0 rating on IMDB and 29% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (“Tomatometer”).

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