If you’ve already had your fill of horror classics and are looking for something fresh to watch on Halloween night, Netflix’s new slasher Time Cut should be on your list.
The twist here is that this slasher flick is also a sci-fi thriller, as high school student and amateur inventor Lucy (Madison Bailey) stumbles upon a time machine and travels back to 2003 to save her older sister Summer (Antonia Gentry) from a masked killer who murdered her 20 years ago. Not only does Lucy have to find a way to stop the killer with her friend Quinn (Griffin Gluck), but she has to do so without destroying the space-time continuum in the process.
Although this is a slasher first and foremost, Inverse notes that in Time Cut, “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.”
Keep in mind that Time Cut only has a TV-14 rating, so don’t expect excessive gore or edge-of-your-seat thrills. The reviews have been more rotten than fresh on Rotten Tomatoes so far, with Collider saying the film “is better off as a time-traveling tale of two sisters living in an alternate reality where they are both alive, than a gripping slasher.”
It’s also worth noting that while there are seriously suspicious similarities to Prime Video’s 2023 slasher Totally Killer starring Kiernan Shipka, principal photography on Time Cut actually ended in August 2021. Meanwhile, Totally Killer didn’t start filming until May 2022.
That said, if you’re looking for a sci-fi slasher this Halloween, both are worth a watch.