Who is the killer in Time Cut? Horror ending explained

Time Cut is a time-travel horror movie in which a teen journeys back to the past to save her sister’s life – here’s how that ending plays out, including if she succeeds.

Time Cut is a new Netflix film that combines time-travel action with slasher kills. Proceedings kick off in the town of Sweetly, Minnesota in 2003, just after multiple teens were violently murdered.

Summer Field (Antonia Gentry) is grieving the loss of those friends, when she too is killed. Cut to 2024, and her sister Lucy (Madison Bailey) is about the same age, and grieving Summer’s loss herself.

But she can do something about it, as early in the horror movie Lucy finds a time machine in a barn, which sends her back to the week of the murders. So does she save her sister’s life, or create a paradox that destroys the space-time continuum? Read on to find out, but beware of SPOILERS ahead…

The paradox at the heart of Time Cut

While Lucy is working on saving her sister with new friend Quinn, she comes to the realization that if Summer survives, her parents won’t want to have another child, thereby jeopardizing her own existence.

This certainly complicates matters on the night of Sweetly’s ‘Spring Fling,’ during which Summer was murdered. History repeats itself in this timeline, with the slasher following Summer into a barn to kill her.

Meanwhile, Lucy’s efforts to collect anti-matter so that she can travel back to the present end with her discovering that the time machine belongs to the killer, meaning he’s also from the future.

The ‘Sweetly Slasher’ revealed

Just as the Sweetly Slasher is about to cut Summer down with a scythe, Lucy and Quinn drive a truck into the killer, thereby saving her sister. But then the murderer is revealed, and it’s… Quinn from the future.

Netflix

Old Quinn chases young Quinn and the sisters back to his house, where he explains his motive in great detail while preparing to kill them all.

“Everyone looked down on me,” he moans. “No one cared. They treated me like sh*t. And then the river happened. Oh the river. They threw you [Young Quinn] in. And Summer laughed while you screamed. And then things got worse. She made things worse.

“Remember I wrote you [Summer] a letter? I spilled my guts, and you told me you could never love us like that because you are pathetic. I wanted to escape, so I made a plan to kill Summer, kill all of her closest friends, and then I would just disappear through time.”

Lucy then switches the time travel machine on and sends both old Quinn and herself back to the future. They then fight in a car park, before she electrocutes him with a charging cable, then stabs Quinn in the chest, thereby killing the killer.

Lucy then decides to leave 2024 and head back to 2003 to be with both her sister and new friend young Quinn. “You belong here,” says Summer in response to Lucy’s return. “This is your future.”

Time Cut is now streaming on Netflix, while if you want to read about an Amazon Prime movie with much the same plot, check out our Totally Killer review.

Alternatively you can check out our full Terror-Tober schedule, including the scariest movie villains, the best zombie movies, and what a psychologist thinks is the most horrific movie of the year.