Bloody Ends Before New Beginnings: Time's Up (2022)

Time's Up (2022)

Rating: **

Starring: Damian Maffei, Hannah Fierman, L.C. Holt

On a general occasion, whenever a slasher flick sets itself around the theme of school bullying, it's often within the idea of brutally snuffing out those who did the bullying as presented by movies like Evilspeak (1981), Slaughter High (1986) and Tormented (2009). In Time's Up (2022), however, it appears the kill count will be focusing on the people who could have prevented the bullying, as in the school staff from the principal to the guidance counselor, from the theater teacher to the gym coach. A novel angle, but will the approach be just as good?

It's New Year's Eve and the faculty members of Pine Falls Highschool are celebrating the countdown at a get together, all the while trying to get behind a recent tragedy wherein a student committed suicide after so much bullying and heartbreak, an incident that tainted the school's reputation considerably. Easier said than done when someone dressed up as "Father Time" is making sure those responsible for the death will pay in blood, thus forcing these fine folks to a game of scavenger hunt that night and should they refuse to partake, lives will be taken. 

Time's Up (2022) definitely has a something to say about a school's role on their students' well-being and it does so by working in small scenes of drama involving the bullied teen and his interactions with the staff members. The drawback from this is that the acting and writing are questionable enough to be distracting, so the effectiveness of the story's depth is mostly loss and often hinders with flow of the plot. It also doesn't help that there isn't that many likeable characters here and those who could've been interesting have barely anything to do except be played as ploys for the killer's grand scheme of revenge. Quite a shame, really, since the story does have the ambitious potential to be good, engaging even, if only the execution is anywhere competently handled.

The only good things to come out of Time's Up (2022) are the kills being done in worthwhile practical effects, with the few extreme slayings really delivering the gore, and the killer's "Father Time" get-up looking rather creepily good that I kinda wish we see more of the maniac in action while donning it. There's also a scene in the last act where an arsehole character bites the big one in the most satisfyingly brutal way, but apart from that, the film could have use some extra polishing to smoothen out its small production bumps.  

Decent enough for a quick watch, but I can't picture myself coming back to this one as an annual treat.

Bodycount:

1 male shot through the mouth

1 male gets a hammer claw to the head

1 male seen dying from a throat cut

1 male found murdered with their face carved

1 female slashed in half with a scythe

1 male succumbs to a heart attack

1 female had her throat cut with a knife

1 male found murdered

1 female stabbed with a knife, later found decapitated

1 female found with rail spikes ran into her eyes

1 male found murdered, body wrapped in plastic

1 male gets a knife stabbed into the back of his neck

1 male stabbed in the eye with his own fractured bone

1 female brained with a cinder block

Total: 14