Parents' Guide to Time Cut

This teen horror slasher is maybe a decade too late to be original, even with the time travel gimmick. Unfortunately, there isn't anything about Time Cut that hasn't been done before and much better. The characters are at least likeable and acted well, even though they are a little generic. Lucy is smart and has been accepted into a NASA program in the present, while Summer isn't smart but is super popular. There is your stereotypical "nerdy" teen boy, side characters who quickly die, and a serial killer on the loose who could be anyone. While the presentation and art direction try to capture 2003 nostalgia, steeping characters in clothing from the time period, pumping malls and parties with pop hits from the early 2000s and highlighting technology like portable CD players and early flip cellphones, the gimmick quickly starts to feel like diminishing returns. But a few viewers may get a kick out of it.

The main problems with this film have to with unoriginality, predictability, and a long list of logical gaps, plot holes, and absurdities. For one, no one seems to care that an unknown teen girl just appears at school and somehow gets into a NASA program with no ID, Social Security number, home address, or other background identity information. The main mystery also repeats a tired stereotype that suggests to teen girls, "If you reject a boy, he may kill you." And as for the actual murder sequences, it seems yet again that all the victims fail to make any smart decisions. Hop a fence and escape? No, head into a barn with no exits. Characters know where and when a killer will kill his next victim? Head to the location, split up, and walk around yelling the victim's name. A character smartly says about a to-be victim, "We need to get her across state lines!" No one responds or does anything of the sort.