Netflix’s 100-Minute Sci-Fi Horror Movie Turns Time Travel Into Nightmare Fuel

Time travel is often used as a gimmick in most sci-fi movies. Instead of capturing how consequential playing with the nature of cause-and-effect can be, most time travel movies treat it as a convenient plot device to erase the past and create a new future timeline. Fortunately, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Synchronic on Netflix does not tread the same path.

The Netflix sci-fi movie neither features time machines nor portals in its story. Instead, Synchronic introduces a drug that acts directly on the pineal gland in the brain. The pineal gland trigger creates a temporal glitch that allows one to physically travel to the past before the "trip" begins to fade away.

By associating time travel with drug addiction, Synchronic weaves a compelling 100-minute narrative that is both fascinating and scary. It perfectly captures how traveling to the past cannot always be all sunshine and rainbows, especially if you do not know where and when you will end up.

Netflix’s Synchronic Gives Time Travel A Terrifying Spin

Time travel in Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Synchonic is like rolling spatial dice. Characters do not get to choose the timeline or the location they will end up in. They could find themselves in the burning heat of the Sahara Desert or even end up in the middle of the Ice Age, surrounded by giant animals that have long gone extinct.

Even landing in the worn-torn fields of a historical battlefield or in the middle of a terrifying cult's ritual is in the realm of possibilities. All these time-travel endeavors in the movie operate under a fixed set of rules. Characters who end up in the past have an invisible 7-minute countdown on their heads.

If they end up even 20 feet away from their landing spot after the countdown ticks to zero, they risk being permanently trapped hundreds or even thousands of years in the past.

With these unforgiving rules, Synchronic strips away the sci-fi glamor that defines most time travel movies. Despite featuring a complex set of rules, the movie never defies its internal logic. For instance, it even establishes that an injury sustained in hundreds of years in the past can leave you bleeding out in the present.

Like most time travel movies, its story setup comes with its own set of paradoxes and contradictions. However, Synchronic ensures it follows a well-rounded story and ends on an incredibly satisfying yet mildly ambiguous note.

Synchronic Is A Part Of A Larger Lovecraftian Movie Universe

Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are now best known for their work in MCU shows like Loki, Moon Knight, and Daredevil: Born Again. However, long before dabbling with superhero shows, they made a line of highly acclaimed indie horror movies like Synchronic.

Interestingly, all of their indie horror movies tie into a large Lovecraftian universe.

Often touted as the "Shitty-Carl Universe," Benson and Moorhead's Lovecraftian brand of sci-fi horror includes flicks like Resolution, The Endless, Spring, Synchronic, and Something in the Dirt. All of these movies do an incredible job of merging high-concept sci-fi with Lovecraftian horror.

While most of these movies remain relatively obscure, they have a devoted cult fanbase, which will hopefully encourage Benson and Moorhead to expand their horror universe. Anyone who wishes to dip their feet into the two talented directors' unique brand of Lovecraftian storytelling can start with Netflix's Synchronic and then move on to their other sci-fi horror films that share loose connections.