Time Cut – Review | Netflix (3/5)

TIME CUT on Netflix is a teen slasher movie with time-traveling. In that sense, it’s not unlike Prime Video’s Totally Killer, but this one is less kitsch. And also more heart. Read our full Time Cut horror movie review here!

TIME CUT is a new Netflix teen slasher horror movie involving time-traveling. Due to the time-travel element alone, there’s also a certain element of comedy and (of course) sci-fi.

If you’ve watched Prime Video’s Totally Killer, a slasher movie with time-traveling will probably sound very familiar. However, apart from those two core elements, this Netflix movie is entirely its own creature.

Continue reading our Time Cut horror movie review below. Find it on Netflix from October 30, 2024.

Back to low-rise jeans and lots of belts

Time Cut begins in the present but quickly takes a 20-year time jump back to the early 2000s. Specifically, in 2003, when High School student Lucy Field (Madison Bailey) time-travels to that year.

As she arrives in the early 2000s, it’s only days before her sister is the fourth (and final) victim of a serial killer who was never caught. The slasher took the lives of Lucy’s sister, Summer, after having killed three of Summer’s friends.

Now that Lucy is back to the days of Pokémon cards, a chart-topping Britney Spears, low-rise jeans, and lots of belts (never in the hoops though), she has a choice to make; Should she attempt to save her sister?

And would that ruin her own future? Or possibly even the entire world? Who knows with his time-travel business? Lucy is a genius heading for a summer internship at NASA but she’s not familiar with time travel.

More than meets the eye

While Time Cut may seem like a new take on the plot from Totally Killer, the two are actually very different. And not just because Totally Killer takes place in the 1980s while this one is in the early 2000s.

No, it’s not so much the surroundings as it is the heart of Time Cut that sets it apart. Lucy isn’t a very happy girl and the murder of her sister has a lot to do with her present-day struggles.

That’s why there is much more to Time Cut than what meets the eye. It’s a fun teen slasher with a time-travel element, yes. But it also manages to delve into core issues about finding your place in the world. It’s not the horror-comedy that Totally Killer is, and it suits the story well.

For this to work, and not just be a cute gimmick, the cast needs to deliver and some wonderful young actors manage to do just that.

The cast includes Madison Bailey (Outer Banks, Black Lightning), Antonia Gentry (Ginny & Georgia, Raising Dion), Griffin Gluck (Locke & Key), and Megan Best (Elevator Game, Seance).

Also, as the mother of Summer and Lucy, we have Rachael Crawford (When Night Is Falling, Possessor), who we don’t see nearly enough.

Watch Time Cut on Netflix now!

Time Cut was directed by Hannah Macpherson (T@gged) and written by Macpherson and Michael Kennedy. You may recognize the name Michael Kennedy from It’s a Wonderful Knife and Freaky, which he also wrote.

Freaky was co-written and directed by Christopher Landon (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), who is also a producer on this new Netflix movie. It also feels like something he would’ve been a part of, so it makes perfect sense.

Time Cut gives us both a teen slasher and a trip back to the nostalgia of the “noughties”. However, while I imagined this would be a fun little gimmick, it ended up offering a lot more. Definitely worth checking out on Netflix.

Time Cut is on Netflix on October 30, 2024, just in time for Halloween.

Details

Director: Hannah Macpherson
Writers: Hannah Macpherson, Michael Kennedy
Cast: Madison Bailey, Antonia Gentry, Michael Shanks, Griffin Gluck, Rachael Crawford, Jordan Pettle, Megan Best, Samuel Braun, Sydney Sabiston, Kataem O’Connor