Netflix's new no.1 is like a kitsch Halloween – its Rotten Tomatoes score is no shock, horror

Halloween is officially done and dusted for 2024, but that hasn't stopped a Halloween-a-like movie from topping the Netflix charts thanks to a surge of interest over the weekend just gone. Indeed it's no shock, but it's certainly a horror – in more ways than one, based on viewers' reviews and ratings.

Time Cut is a schlocky slasher movie with more than a nod to Halloween's infamous protagonist, Michael Myers, as you can see from the movie's killer lead – mask and all. Now, I'm not saying a masked character is a trademark, but it's a bit of a lazy comparison. Plenty of others have done it, sure, but while Scream way back in 1996 managed to inject a sense of humour into the teen drama revisioning of what a slasher movie could be.

Time Cut | Madison Bailey & Antonia Gentry | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube

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Time Cut's point of differentiation? It's spun a time-travel movie into the equation. How so? The movie's lead, Lucy, played by Madison Bailey, spins back the clock to a time when three young women were killed – one of whom is her sister, who she never even met. Can she save her fate without altering the future?

Cue lots of tongue-in-cheek attire, technologies and trends – which, I'll admit, take me back. But even its unique sell hasn't been enough to stop viewers hacking Time Cut to bits. It's got a paltry 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, only marginally bettered at 35% on the site's non-critics-based Popcornmeter. Surprise! Well, no, not really.

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Famed film critic Roger Ebert calls the movie out for "feeling as if everyone is merely fulfilling an obligation". Screen Rant, meanwhile, says that "both the slasher and time-travel portions ... are defined by laziness." And that's summed up succinctly by a viewer whose review reads: "This movie had to of been the worst movie I’ve ever watched... Looked like the actors didn’t even want to be there." Gulp.

Sometimes movies are so bad that they're actually good, but with the best streaming services knocking up so much good content – check out 5 shows on Netflix actually work watching this November instead – the consensus is that Time Cut isn't worth cutting into your time to watch. Especially now Halloween is over and out, and we're into Black Friday Deals before holiday movies become the cheery end-of-year focus...