By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The rules of time travel can be a little finicky depending on the writer, with Back to the Future held up as the standard of the genre, but typically, everyone who winds up going into the past shouldn’t try to change too much. The butterfly effect, which The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror showed off in the best way possible thanks to a malfunctioning toaster, says that the slightest change can wildly alter the future. The latest Netflix surprise hit Time Cut, gets a lot of mileage out of this by dropping a young girl 21 years into the past to prevent her sister’s murder and forever alters the timeline as a result.
Back To 2003
The worst part of Time Cut is right there in the brief synopsis, with the realization that going back 21 years means most of the action takes place in 2003, which explains why your back hurts right now. Outer Banks star Madison Bailey has shown she’s great at the heightened teen drama acting of that other Netflix hit, but here, she gets to play Lucy, a young girl who revels in stopping the Sweetly Slasher from killing her older sister, Summer. The killer’s rampage in 2003 had left the town forever scarred, with the present showing a rundown downtown and everyone has a sense of malaise and emotional detachment from life, clearly following a stage direction of “act depressed about the mere act of breathing.”
She’s soon sent back to 2003, thanks to a time machine inside of a barn, which is sort of explained later on, and runs into her still-alive sister (another Netflix star, Ginny and Georgia’s Antonia Gentry) and her friends, Quinn (played by Griffin Gluck, best known for yet another Netflix series, Locke and Key)and Emmy (Megan Best, not a Netflix star, but she was the woman saved by Bob Odenkirk on the bus in Nobody). Through a series of events, Lucy tries to keep Summer alive and stop the Sweetly Slasher, but in the process, accidentally causes different deaths to occur, shattering one of the golden rules of time travel in the process.
A Short Roller Coaster Of A Movie
Time Cut can be compared to Dark, the German sci-fi time travel series, as both end up exploring similar concepts of time travel and prove that sometimes, breaking the common rules of the genre can work out for the best. Where the two differ is that Dark is filled with amazing performances, multi-dimensional characters, and a twisting plot, while Time Cut is a slasher. It’s not a knock against it because it’s delightfully campy, and everyone understood the assignment while filming, but know what you’re getting into.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the campy acting and dumb plot twists of Time Cut, and I would say that if you liked the time loop of Happy Death Day, you’d probably get some enjoyment out of the blast to the past in this film. The ending raises a lot of questions for time travel aficionados that could be discussed and debated for a long time, which is honestly more than I expected going into the film. For slasher fans, there are no standout kills, but at least you’ll never figure out the Sweetly Slasher’s identity before the big reveal, or at least I didn’t, though I had my theories.
Time Cut is a short roller coaster of a slasher, clocking in at only 92 minutes, something I also appreciated about the film as it didn’t overstay its welcome and didn’t try to do too much. This is the type of film that, in 2003, would have gone straight to the DVD bin at Best Buy, but in 2024, it is the type of cheap content streamers push out on a near-daily basis. The concept of a time travel slasher isn’t new, but at leas there it’s fun and never takes itself too seriously.
Time Cut is currently streaming on Netflix.
