Netflix’s New Time-Travel Thriller Isn’t Totally Original, But It is Fun
A slasher with a paradoxical twist.
There are some movie genres we just can’t get enough of, and slashers are high on that list. But just because they keep audiences coming back doesn’t mean they aren’t in danger of becoming boring. Watching someone kill a bunch of people over and over again can get repetitive, especially when sequels start coming out and you’re watching the same person kill over and over again.
Netflix’s latest horror movie, released just in time for Halloween, manages to avoid being boring by not only including a twist in the basic premise, but also multiple plot twists throughout to keep you on your toes.
Time Cut follows Lucy (Madison Bailey), an overachieving teen who lives in the shadow of her queen bee sister Summer (Antonia Gentry) who was brutally murdered by a serial killer before she was born. When visiting the site of her sister’s murder, she accidentally stumbles onto a time machine and is sent back to 2003, a few days before her sister was slaughtered. With the help of the nerdy Quinn (Griffin Gluck), she embarks on a quest to save her sister and find her way home, no matter what it takes.
The premise of a “time travel slasher” isn’t what makes this movie special. In fact, last year’s Totally Killer had an eerily similar structure, down to the mannequin-esque mask the killer wears, with the only big change being set in the 1980s instead of the 2000s. (Time Cut wrapped filming in 2021 before Totally Killer even started production, so it’s not a rehash.)
Where it finds room to innovate is in how it approaches time travel. Lucy eventually realizes through Back to the Future logic that because her parents had her as a replacement after Summer was murdered, if Summer lives, then Lucy will cease to exist. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg — the more this movie examines time travel and grandfather paradoxes, the less it cares. It may seem like hand-waving a plot hole, but it’s actually genius. After all, this is a slasher movie: the finer points of the metaphysical worldbuilding don’t exactly matter.
Antonia Gentry, Madison Bailey, and Griffin Gluck in Time Cut.
That isn’t even all the plot twists, as the story constantly bends to reveal something new about the two main sisters. But in between all those revelations, there’s still time for 2000s makeover montages, Quinn working at a video store and gawking at a smartphone, and needle drops from both Hilary Duff and Avril Lavigne.
Time Cut is a movie that fundamentally understands what makes time travel stories interesting. It’s not the science behind them, but how the characters react to the circumstances they find themselves in. It doesn’t matter how Lucy learns she might cease to exist, but how she chooses to spare her own life or her sister’s. Keeping the story simple allows every scene to glow and crackle like the time machine’s lasers or a 2003 modem. In the words of Avril herself, “Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?”
