Worth Your Time: Although “Time Cut” is a cringey attempt at creating a time travel murder mystery movie, it still serves as a thrilling and entertaining watch

My most quoted phrase of the day on Nov. 17: “Oh, heck no!”

I wasn’t referencing the Chief’s first loss of the season or my nasty AP Statistics homework. Instead, I was yelling at the masked serial killer from the new movie “Time Cut” that kept appearing behind characters with a huge knife. 

“Time Cut,” a Netflix Orginal film released on Oct. 30, stars two breakout-Netflix actresses Madison Bailey and Antonia Gentry who play age-gap sisters who meet through time travel. While the film does feature cringey attempts at recreating 2000s culture through costuming and music choices, I found the movie as an entertaining, thrilling watch.

Bailey plays high school student Lucy Field, the younger sister of Summer Field — played by Gentry — who was murdered along with three of her friends. Lucy’s only reason for existence is because her parents couldn’t cope with the death of her sister, but the parents switched from being kind and supportive with Summer to being super strict and cold with Lucy — not a great reason to have a kid if you ask me.

While honoring the 21st anniversary of her sister’s death, Lucy miraculously comes across a time machine that takes her back to 2003 a couple days before her sister dies. How Lucy stumbles into a barn that just happens to have a time machine is beyond me. But it was pretty entertaining.

Lucy uses her entrapment in the past as a way to solve Summer’s murder. And hopefully save her life in the process.

The suspenseful music was what really brought the whole eerie serial killer vibe together. Every time the killer would appear, the camera angle would show him just mere feet behind the victim as creepy music brought shivers down my spine. I’m not a huge horror-movies person, but this directing style definitely affected my sleep that night.

However, I did get goosebumps from other parts of the movie. But not from fear.

The movie tried to bring the spectators back to the 2000s with the usage of music, costumes and slang, but it was not executed well. Instead, massive clothing and female stereotypes were used to reciprocate 2000s culture. I’ve never seen so many actors wear bright pink jumpsuits — even from 2000s movies.

Even dialogue from the 2024 scenes made me cringe. Bailey delivered lines that were supposed to be mic-drop moments, but she held steadfast onto the mic. The line, “He’s not one step ahead of us… because I’m from the future” made me cringe so visibly I could’ve disturbed my neighbors. 

But even with these embarrassing moments, I found myself leaning into the movie and trying to help Lucy solve the murder before it was too late. I made a mental suspect list and tried to narrow it down until the killer was caught. It brought me back to my childhood Nancy Drew obsession as I tried to analyze each alibi and guilty expression.

“Time Cut” won’t be present at next year’s Oscars — heck, it won’t even recieve a fresh rating on rotten tomatoes. But not every movie you watch needs to be a critically acclaimed film. If you enjoy playful murder mysteries, but want to spice it up with a touch of time traveling sci-fi, this movie is for you. Just be sure you don’t watch it right before bedtime.