If you’re not ready to say goodbye to spooky season just yet, then Netflix has a new teen slasher movie for you: Time Cut, a new Netflix original that began streaming last week.
As many on social media have pointed, the premise of Time Cut is nearly identical to that of another streaming horror movie that came out on Amazon last year, Totally Killer. In Totally Killer, Kiernan Shipka starred as a time-traveling final girl, who goes back in time to the ’80s to save her mother from the “Sweet Sixteen” serial killer. In Time Cut, Madison Bailey stars as a time-travelling final girl who goes back in time to 2003, to save her sister from the “Sweetly Slasher” serial killer. They even have similar serial killer names!
That said, in defense of director Hannah MacPherson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Kennedy, Time Cut was done with filming by 2022, well before the release of Totally Killer. Too bad, Netflix kept the film on the shelf for nearly two years!
Like most movies that deal with time travel, Time Cut gets confusing at times. That’s where Decider can help. Read on for a breakdown of the Time Cut plot summary and Time Cut ending explained, including who the killer is in Time Cut. Spoilers ahead, obviously.
The movie opens on the night of April 18, 2003. Summer Field (played by Antonia Gentry) attends a high school party in a barn, just days after her close friends—Emmy, Brian, and Val—were killed by a serial killer. And they still haven’t caught the guy! Summer’s ex-boyfriend Ethan (Samuel Braun) just wants to get back to normal, and Summer doesn’t want to be alone. So she goes to his party. Unfortunately, the masked killer shows up at the party, and murders Summer, too.
We cut to 21 years later, in 2024. Summer’s parents had another daughter, Lucy (Madison Bailey), who has lived her whole life in the shadow of the late sister she never knew. On the anniversary of her sister’s death, Lucy and her parents visit the memorial at the barn where Summer died. Lucy stumbles across a time machine in the barn, and gets thrust back into the year 2003, two days before the death of her sister. Cue the Hilary Duff!
Lucy befriends the school science nerd, Quinn (Griffin Gluck) who has studied time travel, and believes Lucy is from the future. He’s also obviously in love with Summer. That said, he warns Lucy that she cannot change anything from the past, lest she create a devastating ripple effect. But Lucy still tries to save the first two victims of the killer, Brian and Val. She isn’t successful, and now her sister wants to know how she knew something bad was going to happen. Lucy confesses that she’s from the future, and Summer’s sister. At first, Summer doesn’t believe it, but she’s convinced after Lucy gives her an old break-up note from “E,” that Lucy found in Summer’s room. Lucy assumes it was from Ethan.
Summer convinces Lucy and Quinn to work together to save the killer’s next victim, Emmy (Megan Best), who is Summer’s best friend. They successfully save her, and Lucy realizes that the past can be changed without devastating consequences. She also realizes that Summer’s note was from Emmy, not Ethan. Summer confirms this is true: She and Emmy were dating, and going to come out to their parents as gay. But Summer chickened out.
Lucy resolves to try to save Summer, even though it means she will most likely never be born. (Her parents tell her that they don’t want another child, confirming to Lucy that she was only born to replace Summer.) She, Quinn, and Summer come up with a plan to take out the killer, save Summer’s life, and send Lucy back to 2024.
Lucy and Quinn break into the town’s local high-tech lab in order to obtain the part they need for the time machine. Once inside, they discover that the killer has already been to the lab and taken the part they need—aka, the killer is also from the future, just like Lucy. That explains why there was a time machine there in the first place!
Summer goes to the party where she is supposed to get murdered, and lures the killer into that barn. Lucy and Quinn crash through the barn and hit the killer with a car. But he’s not dead yet! When the killer stands up, his mask comes off, and his identity is revealed.
The killer’s mask falls off, and it’s… Griffin Gluck in old age makeup! AKA, Quinn from the future! C’mon, you saw that one coming, right? He’s the only one who knows anything about time travel!
Summer, Lucy, and present-Quinn return to his garage, where the time machine is being stored. Future-Quinn follows them, and reveals how he became so evil. In his timeline—aka the timeline where Lucy did not travel to the past—he was tossed in the river by bullies, while Summer watched. (In this timeline, Quinn was saved by Lucy, who stands up to the bullies.) Future-Quinn says he gave Summer a card confessing his love to her, and she told him she would never love him that way, because she’s a lesbian. Because of this, future-Quinn dedicated his life to building a time machine, traveling to the past, killing Summer’s friends, and then killing Summer.
Why did future-Quinn spare the one guy who did the most bullying? And when he gave Summer that card confessing his feelings, had her friends just been killed? Or not, because he hadn’t gone back in time to kill them yet? Maybe there are actually three different Quinn timelines? It’s all very confusing, and not explained very well.
Anyway. Lucy fires up the time machine, and both she and future-Quinn are sent back to 2024. They fight, and Lucy wins. Like, she really wins—she stabs future-Quinn a bunch of times with a knife. He’s dead! Yay!
Back in 2003, Summer and Quinn lament the loss of Lucy, who they assume is gone. But as it turns out, that’s not how time travel in this universe works. Lucy isn’t gone, and she uses the time machine to go back to 2003 for good. Lucy explains that, yes, Summer is alive in 2024, and that her parents didn’t know who Lucy was. So she decided to come back to the year 2003 and live out her life by her sister’s side. And we can assume that this version of Quinn will not grow up to be a murderer. The movie ends with Lucy and Summer arguing over who is the “older” sibling.
Does it make sense? Not really. Like most time travel movies, I suggest you don’t overthink it. Timey-wimey stuff is complicated, because time travel is not real. Just go with it!