‘Not a frosted tip in sight’: Netflix movie set in 2003 sparks outrage among millennials

Madison Bailey in ‘Time Cut’ (Netflix)
Madison Bailey in ‘Time Cut’ (Netflix)

Netflix’s new horror movie Time Cut has sparked outrage among millennials who feel the 2003-set movie doesn’t accurately resemble the Noughties.

Starring Outer Banks’s Madison Bailey as Lucy Field, the movie follows her character as she accidentally travels back in time to a few days before her older sister (Ginny and Georgia’s Antonia Gentry) and three other students are murdered by a masked figure.

On Wednesday (October 30), the day of its release, the streamer shared a trailer for the film on X with the caption: “Spend a day in 2003!”

In the teaser, Bailey’s Lucy is seen entering a high school with Hilary Duff’s 2003 hit “So Yesterday” playing in the background. As she walks through the halls, she looks around and sees girls dressed in bright pink and turquoise tracksuits, Ugg boots and denim miniskirts while two students wheel by in Heelys and others are talking on flip phones and listening to music on their portable CD players.

Several X users have since taken to the comment section of the post to air their grievances with the movie’s supposed 2003 costuming and props.

“This doesn’t look like 2003, idk how to explain it, but this looks like 2024 pretending to be 2003,” one wrote.

“The lighting is off here. It’s too clear and bright. We wore color but the saturation of those colors and lighting overall feel too current,” a second noted, while a third said: “We were not on our devices like that at the time.”

“Why are all these kids wearing Uggs?” another questioned. “Like, they existed back then, but they were nowhere near that popular yet. At least not where I lived.”

“Not a frosted tip in sight. No goths or punks. No hemp necklaces. No t-shirt over long sleeve tee. Did they not have a single 40yo working on this production?” someone else tweeted.

Antonia Gentry and Bailey Madison in ‘Time Cut’ (Allen Fraser/Netflix)
Antonia Gentry and Bailey Madison in ‘Time Cut’ (Allen Fraser/Netflix)

“The makeup. We were never so polished. It was bad, like foundation 3 shades darker than our skintone,” one quipped, with a second adding: “There’s a lack of bangs and SIDE PARTS, why everyone has a middle part haha?”

Released on Netflix on Wednesday, Time Cut has already bombed with critics and viewers. Its audience rating currently sits at 49 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and its critics rating sits at an even lower 14 percent.

The Wrap’s William Bibbiani called it “a knockoff of a knockoff” while AV Club’s Matt Donato wrote that it “walks, talks, and underwhelms like too many mid-range genre titles marred by tonal indecisiveness.”

Time Cut is out now on Netflix.