‘Time Cut’ Ending Explained: Netflix's horror flick leaves you with more questions than answers
SWEETLY, MINNESOTA: Time travel movies and sci-fi thrillers have captivated audiences by using science as a gateway to explore fantastical "what if" scenarios. These films often make us question whether time travel might be possible, even if only in fiction. Often, they avoid going into the deep details of time loops or paradoxes, knowing that doing so could leave us scratching our heads even more.
Netflix’s 'Time Cut' takes a similar approach. It’s a story of revenge, regret, and changing the past to rewrite the future. The film centers on Quinn, a smart but troubled young man whose painful high school years push him toward a dark future. As he revisits the past with a time machine, Quinn’s choices—and the way they shape those around him—leave plenty of mystery for viewers to unpack. Let’s take a closer look at how 'Time Cut' twists its time travel tale and answer some of the big questions it raises.
Why did adult Quinn kill Summer?
Quinn’s dark path really began during his difficult high school years. He was a gifted student at Sweetly High School but faced constant bullying. One day, two boys—Brian Palmer and Ethan—took things too far and threw him into a river as part of a school hazing ritual. This humiliating moment was especially painful for Quinn when he saw his high school crush, Summer Field, laughing along with everyone else. This betrayal left a deep scar.
Even though he felt hurt, Quinn tried to express his feelings by writing a love letter to Summer. She turned him down, partly because she had feelings for Emmy Golden, another girl at their school. Not knowing why Summer rejected him, Quinn bottled up his hurt and held onto it for years. By the time he grew up, he’d become consumed with bitterness, leading him to invent a time machine—not to help people but to take revenge on the people who had rejected and humiliated him. Quinn went back in time to kill Summer and the people who made his life miserable, erasing them from his world permanently. In an original version of this timeline, Summer likely kept her feelings for Emmy hidden, fearful of others’ judgments. But in this new timeline, Lucy, Summer’s sister, encourages her to live her truth and be open about her feelings for Emmy. This small change has a huge effect on how everything plays out.
When did adult Quinn travel to 2003?
It seems Quinn used his time machine on April 18, 2024, the same day Lucy visited the spot where her sister was killed. She saw a strange flash of light near a barn—a sign that Quinn had used his machine to return to April 16, 2003, and begin his revenge killings. Quinn’s plan was to erase Summer and her friends from his past, eliminating them from his life story.
But Lucy’s unexpected arrival in the past disrupted his plan. Instead of letting Quinn’s tragic timeline unfold, she ended up changing his life. In trying to protect her sister, Lucy set off a whole new chain of events that would alter Quinn’s future, too.
How did Lucy change the future?
When Lucy arrived in 2003, she made it her mission to find out who had killed her sister and stop them. In the process, she changed the timeline by preventing Quinn’s planned murders, though her interference caused some unintended deaths along the way. She saved Emmy, allowing her and Summer to rekindle their feelings and make their relationship public. With Quinn’s violent plans disrupted, Summer and Emmy had the chance to openly be together. Lucy’s choice to save Summer’s life meant she risked erasing her own existence since her parents might never have had another child. But in 'Time Cut', time travel doesn’t seem to erase people from the timeline so easily. Instead, it just changes their reality. After saving her sister, Lucy found her parents no longer recognized her, and she didn’t seem to exist in their lives anymore. This reality was both freeing and unsettling, and Lucy eventually chose to stay in the past, back in 2003, to create a new life on her own terms.
Will Quinn become the 'Sweetly Slasher' again?
After Lucy intervenes, it seems unlikely that Quinn will repeat his dark path. By preventing him from experiencing the worst of his high school trauma, she allowed him to avoid the anger and bitterness that had driven him to become a killer. In this new timeline, Quinn doesn’t feel the same resentment, and he’s more focused on his love for science rather than revenge. Lucy and Quinn even seemed to form a bond, possibly even hinting at a future relationship. From their first meeting, Lucy admired his intelligence, suggesting that in this new reality, Quinn might use his talents to make a positive impact instead.
In 'Time Cut', a few moments of kindness and understanding change the course of everyone’s lives. Lucy’s brave choice to go back in time and confront her family’s tragedy altered Quinn’s fate, freeing him from a cycle of violence and giving him a second chance. While the film doesn’t dive deep into the logic of time travel, it reminds us how powerful even the smallest acts can be. Through its unique approach, 'Time Cut' explores what it means to heal from past wounds, build empathy, and take control of one’s future—even when time itself is not on your side.