Netflix’s new movie Time Cut has familiar faces, a slasher mystery, humor, time travel, sisterly bonding, enough early 2000s nostalgia to fill a shopping mall, and, the reason I’m here to talk to you today, lesbians!
“Time travel slasher comedy?” I hear you asking. “Didn’t I see that movie last year?” Well, friends, remember how in 2011 the movies Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached came out in the same year, and were basically the same movie but one had Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis and the other had Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman? That’s basically what happened here with Time Cut and last year’s time travel slasher, Totally Killer. But where in Totally Killer, the main character went back to the 80s (a perfectly respectable decade for time travel) to try to catch the person who slew her mother’s friends, in Time Cut, the main character travels to 2003, because apparently that was 20 entire years ago. (Rude.) And while the elevator pitches for these movies are very similar, the actual plot and how things play out is a bit different. (And technically, this movie was made first, even though it was released second.)
In Time Cut, Lucy Field (Madison Bailey, Outer Banks) is feeling haunted by a sister she never met, a sister who was taken out in a murder spree in 2003, two years before she was born. Lucy was born as a sort of…replacement kid, and she feels that deeply. Her parents are (understandably) traumatized, distant, and overprotective, to the point where they can’t even be happy for her when she gets into a NASA internship program, because that would mean she had to leave their small town for Washington DC. On the anniversary of her sister’s death, she goes with her parents to the barn where her sister was killed, and stumbles across a time travel machine that zips her back to 2003, only a few days before the murders began.
While she’s in the past, Lucy meets her sister Summer (Antonia Gentry, Ginny & Georgia), and Summer’s friends, including fellow science nerd Quinn (Griffin Gluck, Cruel Summer), and Summer’s best friend Emmy (Megan Best, The Watchful Eye.) While she’s learning about early aughts fashion and what teenagers even did at the mall, Lucy has to decide how much she’s willing to interfere: Does she risk causing a time rift and save Summer’s friends? Does she risk blipping herself out of existence by saving Lucy herself? There’s a lot at stake and she doesn’t know how to handle it, but one thing she does know is that she’s enjoying seeing a brighter, untraumatized version of her parents, and finally meeting the sister who previously only existed to her in pictures on the wall and a preserved but empty bedroom down the hall.
I won’t go over what she decides and how it all goes, but I will tell you this: there’s a sweet sapphic subplot! (I will warn you here about incoming spoilers. The reveal of who is queer is presented as a twist, and while I’m sure it will surprise many straight viewers, I have a feeling sleuthy queers watching will pick up on it; we tend to be on the lookout for these things.)
In the first version of the slasher’s spree that we see, Summer is dragged to a dance by a boy with floppy 2003 hair, her on-again, off-again boyfriend Ethan (Samuel Braun, The Way Home). He tries to cheer her up and dance but all she can think about is how much she misses Emmy, who was killed the night before. Not a clue on its own; anyone would be too upset to party the day after their best friend was killed, but two other teens were also killed the day before, and she doesn’t mention them, just Emmy. There’s also a note that Summer finds in the present-day that is signed by “E” that she immediately assumes was written by Ethan, whereas I personally had already forgotten Ethan’s name and assumed the note was written by Emmy, I just didn’t know what it meant yet. And then, the moment I knew my hunch was correct, when Summer asks Lucy about her future, and Lucy isn’t ready to tell her that she’s dead in her timeline, so she lies and makes up a story about her cool job and awesome husband, and Summer flinches. It takes Lucy a little longer to clock Summer’s feelings for Emmy, but in true Gen Z fashion, she doesn’t blink an eye about it, and accepts her sister with open arms in a very sweet conversation.
Now, listen, this movie is not going to go down in history as a Great Slasher Film. Nor is it going to go down in history for its queer representation. Lucy literally tells Summer that “it gets better” at one point. But it was a cute, campy time (one of the main character’s names is Summer Field, you know it’s not taking itself too seriously), and it was really nice to see a queer couple again in the horror-comedy genre. And while Emmy hardly gets any screentime, it’s no small thing to have Lucy be a queer Black main character played by a queer actress. In fact, both Madison Bailey and Antonia Gentry are queer in real life, which makes this film even gayer than the maintext. (Bailey came out as pansexual years ago, but since I don’t watch her hit show Outer Banks, I was out of the loop until I saw this interview where she mentioned that her girlfriend, Mariah Linney, pays for her Netflix subscription.)
Time Cut isn’t about the queer couple, it’s about the two sisters, so the queer storyline didn’t HAVE to be there, which is what makes it special. There’s something subtly satisfying about the fact that the timeline where Summer comes out and gets the girl ends significantly better than the timeline where she stays in the closet and tries to keep dating a stupid boy. It also is very 2003, for a teen girl’s Big Secret to be that they have feelings for their female best friend. It fit right in with the see-through landline phone, crop tops, and inflatable furniture.
Overall the movie was a cute, fun time that coordinates perfectly with its fellow horror comedies, with less gore and genuine scares than Bodies Bodies Bodies, but more gays and heart than its fraternal twin, Totally Killer. I hope horror writers continue to tuck queer stories into their movies, because it makes me 300% more likely to watch and enjoy every time.
Time Cut is now streaming on Netflix.
