Time Cut was one of the biggest Netflix horrors of the 2024 Halloween period, but if you're just catching up on the time-loop slasher horror, we get how you might be a bit confused over who the killer actually is.
The movie follows high-school senior student Lucy Field as she is accidentally transported back to 2003 through a mysterious time machine.
She has an opportunity to right the wrongs that led to her sister Summer's murder 20 years ago, when a serial killer known as the Sweetly Slasher went on a three-day killing spree and took the lives of four teenagers.
Changing the past could lead to rippling consequences for the future, but would Lucy be able to stand by and see Summer and her friends be murdered?
Let's delve into the ending of Time Cut to explain all, including who the Sweetly Slasher killer is.
Time Cut ending explained: Who is the killer?
After the first murders, Lucy decides to change the past, consequences be damned.
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Having saved Emmy (Megan Best) from being killed, Lucy, Summer and physics genius Quinn (Griffin Gluck) come up with a plan to get rid of the killer and fix the time machine for Lucy to go back to her time.
However, soon they discover that the killer was actually from the future all along – it's the future version of Quinn!
It turns out that the nerdy outcast grew up with a festering hate of those who bullied him at high school, and he mostly resented Summer for rejecting his romantic advances. Now an adult incel, Quinn built the time machine to travel back in time and murder Summer and all her friends, and then got lost in time to avoid legal repercussions.
Lucy's intervention, though, has stopped his plan from coming to fruition. It has also prevented teenage Quinn from stepping onto the path to become the Sweetly Slasher killer.
"We get to look at the opportunities that changed his life forever," director and co-writer Hannah Macpherson told TUDUM. "One person reaching out and becoming a friend where there was no friend can make a difference."
Drawing him into Quinn's garage, Lucy drags the older Quinn some time into the future by activating the time machine. They fight in a car park, and Lucy stabs the killer.
She then uses the time machine to go back to 2024, only to discover that, by saving Summer in 2003, her existence has been erased from her former life. As she found out earlier, her parents only conceived her out of their grief for losing Summer, but they never intended to have a second child.
Lucy is not too bothered by this though because she feels like she belongs in 2003 with her sister and her new best friend Quinn.
She has decided to start a new life in the noughties, reapplying for an internship at NASA and adding some Hilary Duff and Avril Lavigne to her playlist.
How does Lucy still exist in Time Cut?
As ever with a timey-wimey concept, you have to not question it too much because you might start wondering why Lucy still exists after she saved Summer in 2003.
By all rights, she shouldn't exist, because how could she go back into the past if she was never there? Most likely, it's an Avengers: Endgame situation where Lucy created a new timeline when she went into the past.
Equally though, just don't think about it.
"We had a variety of different options for endings, including both sisters being alive in the present day," Macpherson revealed to TUDUM.
"Summer would have been 20 years older than Lucy, but they were still both alive. We just felt that that image of 45-year-old Summer and teenage Lucy wasn't as happy as the two girls as teenagers getting to experience life together.
"It just felt so good, time-travel logic be damned."
Time Cut is now available to watch on Netflix.
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
