Horrifyingly unfunny

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/10/2024 (508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian filmmakers Stuart Stone and Adam Rodness infamously had a van full of equipment stolen from them as they began filming their 2022 stoner comedy Vandits in Winnipeg in 2021.

Unfazed by that, they returned last year to shoot a more-or-less unscripted comedy film, accepting an onscreen challenge from Farpoint Films honcho Kyle Bornais to make something that definitively proves the existence of ghosts.

In so doing, the guys made use of Winnipeg’s own haunted history, visiting places such as the Fort Garry Hotel’s infamous room 202, Hamilton House and the Maritime Museum in Selkirk. Backed up by a tried-and-true local film crew (including location manager Karen Tusa and sound mixer Kevin Bacon, whose name is considered for promotional exploitation), the guys ride through Winnipeg in a rented school bus, plastered with their own head shots.

The film simultaneously aims for laughs and chills and sporadically wins both. Stone and Rodness attempt a Mulder/Scully dynamic of believer and skeptic that devolves into bickering.

Some local magicians, wrestler Colt Cabana and a few notable actors (including Michael Rapaport and Tony Nappo) liven things up as much as they can. One scene in the former convent in the L’Auberge Clemence Inn in Elie succeeds in suggesting that something otherworldly is happening.

Inevitably, the guys succumb to giving the people what they want in a wholly fake climax.

On the plus side, it’s handy for Halloween viewing to have a film that highlights so many of Manitoba’s haunted locations.

But in the end, it proves there is nothing quite so scary as improvised comedy that fails to land.

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Shot in Manitoba in the summer of 2021, Time Cut arrived with a promising premise — Back to the Future meets Scream — and a producer, Christopher Landon, with some success navigating the teen/horror genre (Freaky, Happy Death Day 2U).

Lucy (Madison Bailey of Outer Banks) is a teen genius who lives a sad life in her small town, mostly as a result of her parents having lost their older daughter to a mysterious spree killer in 2003, before Lucy was born.

While investigating the scene of the crime, Lucy (on track to work for NASA as a result of her scientific genius) stumbles upon a time machine and utilizes it to take it back to 2003 to save Summer (Antonia Gentry), the big sister she has never known.

She figures out a way to insinuate herself into Summer’s high school, where there is no shortage of suspects, including a jealous ex-boyfriend and possibly a science geek (Griffin Gluck) who carried a torch for Summer.

Director and co-writer Hannah Macpherson has some fun with the sparkly fashions of the era and an especially apt choice of soundtrack songs, such as Hilary Duff’s So Yesterday. But the horror elements are toned down to PG levels, so Halloween night viewing is recommended only for younger teens and gore-sensitive adults.

Sadly, Time Cut registers mainly as an overwrought teen melodrama that fails to serve in either its science fiction and horror departments.

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