Time Helmet

In today’s hectic world, it sometimes feels so good to time warp again, just like the excellent Canadian indie sci-fi comedy Time Helmet, written and directed by Mike Jackson. Donald Voltman (Peter New) was a boy genius back in college, where he invented a metallic interface for your skull that wiped out hangovers. The university retained the patent rights, so Voltman attempted to make his fortune by inventing a time helmet.

This would allow the wearer to later travel back in time if they put on the helmet again. Things didn’t turn out well; his marriage fell apart after his ex, Patricia (Rhona Rees), invented a much more successful one. Poverty-stricken and estranged from his daughter, Zoe (Amber Taylor), Voltman is consumed with bitterness when he switches on the handmade time helmet.

A film still from Time Helmet (2026) showing the time police enforcer Sargent Slaughter (Camryn Macdonald) during the period she inhabits her 13-year-old body while tracking a temporal disturbance.

“Instantly he is possessed by himself from the year 2051, where his future self as an old man has let bitterness hatch into a plot for revenge.”

Instantly, he is possessed by himself from the year 2051, where his future self, as an old man, has let bitterness hatch into a plot for revenge. Voltman enlists the help of his neighbor, Ferris (Lou Ticzon), to document his actions for posterity. He also bursts into a law firm while wearing a bathrobe and a helmet, announcing that he is from the future and hires the young clerk, Melissa (Paula Burrows). He keeps saying that Melissa will be his lawyer for decades and that he needs her now for some important work.

Meanwhile, in the year 3000, the guardians who oversee time flow discover a major temporal disturbance caused by the time crime the future Voltman plans to commit in the past. So they dispense their most brutal enforcer of the law, Sargent Slaughter (Camryn Macdonald) of the time police, to jump back into the body she inhabited during the crime period. That body would be the one belonging to the 13-year-old girl who swipes beers from Voltman’s house, and she is ready to destroy.