‘Time Cut’ Review – A Rushed And Underdeveloped Horror Flick Saved By Its Leads

The time-travel slasher is a relatively new and fresh concept within genre films. Amazon Prime’s Totally Killer proved that borrowing the super scientific elements of Back To The Future and combining them with the unnerving and bloody aspects of Scream can be a slam-dunk premise. That’s likely why many will add Netflix’s sci-fi slasher, Time Cut, to their queue. Unfortunately, the film isn’t nearly as well thought-out and paced as its forebearers. However, viewers won’t walk away completely feeling like they’ve wasted their time because of the charming and sincere heroines that lead the film.

Ashanti’s song “What’s Luv” blares as the movie opens on a barn house party in 2003. Summer (Antonia Gentry) arrives even though she is spooked due to the recent murders of her close friends. Unfortunately for her, she soon becomes the final victim of the Sweetly Slasher. The film jumps to 2024, where we meet Lucy (Madison Bailey). She’s Summer’s younger sister, who was born many years after her sister’s death and is a replacement child. Not only are their parents (played by Michael Shanks and Rachael Crawford) deeply impacted by the loss of their daughter, but the town itself has seemingly never recovered from the unsolved murders of the four teens. During a yearly memorial at the location where Summer perished, Lucy stumbles on a time machine and finds herself sent back to 2003. Once there, she meets and befriends her sister and becomes determined to change the future.

This film takes what should have been an exciting and thrilling story and wastes its potential, and it will leave viewers scratching their heads. One of the most frustrating things is how the film treats its characters. It barely gives us time to get to know them and doesn’t allow the story to breathe and develop naturally. For example, all of the victims are the friends of Gentry’s character, Summer. Viewers see her staring longingly at a picture of them before their murders. However, the film doesn’t show one scene of the group hanging out together or interacting awkwardly in the school hallways. The film alludes to some fallout due to Summer being inducted into the popular crowd, but again, viewers will have to surmise this through the vague hints the story provides.

Another frustrating miss for the film is the relationship between Summer and Emmy (Megan Best). I’ll refrain from spoiling it in this review, but the film has the opportunity to fully explore the implications of their relationship but chooses not to.  A few more scenes between the two would have gone a long way to building their storyline and developing the characters.

The film’s final transgression is its nonsensical ending. More than one character shouldn’t exist by the film’s conclusion, and the film wraps up quickly to avoid explaining how it’s possible that said characters are still around. Again, the film has zero interest in exploring the fascinating implications of some of its plot points.

As mentioned earlier, the film’s saving grace is the performances of Gentry and Bailey. The two actresses have excellent and believable chemistry, making the movie watchable and enjoyable. The best scenes of the film are when the two bond. It’s nice, but sad that it’s the only bright spot in the movie that many viewers will walk away with. It’s nice to see Gentry stretching her wings and pursuing roles beyond the Netflix drama Ginny and Georgia.

While Time Cut is watchable, thanks to its exciting leads, many viewers will walk away thinking about how great the film could have been.

Time Cut is now streaming on Netflix.