7 Biggest Clues To The Sweetly Slasher’s Identity Twist In Time Cut

Warning! This post contains spoilers for Time Cut.

Almost throughout its duration, Netflix time cut drops several subtle clues that reveal the identity of its central assassin Sweetly Slasher. Serving as another addition to Netflix’s catalog of original sci-fi films, time cut It doesn’t go too deep into exploring complex ideas with its time travel setup. Instead, it sticks to tired tropes of the subgenre and presents a coming-of-age drama that focuses on themes of grief, childhood trauma, and the consequences of even the smallest actions.

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To highlight how past events impact the future, time cut it drops several hidden details throughout its runtime that secretly reveal its final twist. Many first-time viewers will probably end up missing these details, as the film tries to mislead them through red herrings. However, viewers who rewatch the time-travel film will notice that it reveals its biggest twist in its opening moments.

7 Summer rejected Quinn’s letter in the 2003 timeline

Rejection was the turning point in Quinn’s story

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One of the first clues that reveals that Quinn is Sweetly Slasher’s killer in time cut appears in the opening scene of the film. As Summer heads to a party, Quinn innocently hands her a letter expressing his feelings for her. To his dismay, she ignores him and heads to the party. The film later reveals that even after reading the letter, Summer had rejected Quinn saying she could never love him that way.

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Griffin Gluck as Quinn and Antonia Gentry as Summer Field as Time Cut Related What was in the letter Quinn gave to Summer In Time?

Quinn’s letter to Summer in Netflix’s Time Cut is one of the film’s most crucial story developments that determines what the future holds.

As Quinn’s story in the future suggests, the rejection eventually became a major event in his timeline, turning him into a resentful killer who traveled back in time and murdered Summer. After Lucy travels back in time, protecting Quinn from bullies and showing him that he can have friends too, Quinn’s timeline changes, leading to him never becoming the killer. As a result, the canonical event that encouraged him to murder Summer and her friends never occurred in the first place.

6 Lucy finds the time machine in the barn where Summer was killed

The killer emerges from the barn in the opening segment

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In time cutIn the opening moments, Sweetly Slasher’s killer suddenly emerges from the barn where the prom is being held. This first scene hints that he has kept his time machine inside the barn and that he travels with it every time he jumps through time. In Lucy’s 2024 timeline, she first encounters the time machine when she enters the barn where her sister was killed. This scene establishes that Quinn created the time machine and kept it hidden in the barn.

5 Quinn’s teacher calls him a physics genius

Quinn’s passion for time travel foreshadows her future

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After Lucy travels back in time and visits her science teacher, he introduces her to Quinn, who he claims is a physics genius. The teacher calling a high school student a genius foreshadows how Quinn will eventually build a time machine and use it to murder those who wronged him. Quinn backs up her teacher’s claims by sharing with Lucy how much she knows about time travel, reminding her that altering the past can have repercussions on the future and change it significantly.

His extensive knowledge of time travel and how it can potentially work underlines how he will eventually build a time machine in the future.

As the film progresses, Quinn also helps Lucy understand the inner workings of the time machine. His extensive knowledge of time travel and how it can potentially work underlines how he will eventually build a time machine in the future. However, Lucy does not suspect him of being the killer because she does not realize that the killer could be from the future.

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4 Quinn Almost Got Thrown Into The River

The river incident was another event that made him the murderer

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When “future” Quinn meets Lucy, Summer, and “past” Quinn in time cutIn the final arc, he reminds Summer of how she laughed at him when the elders threw him into the river. His recollection of the event suggests that he was deeply disturbed by it and that it played a crucial role in eventually turning him into a serial killer. However, in the new 2003 timeline, Lucy stops the elders from throwing Quinn into the river. As a result, the new timeline’s Quinn never stops believing in the goodness of humanity and does not become Sweetly Slasher’s killer.

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3 Quinn from 2003 always knew the whereabouts of the murdered teens

Quinn’s past helped him strategize his future murders.

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The 2003 timeline reveals that Quinn interacted with Summer at the party near the barn moments before she was murdered. Since he was with her in 2003, his future self, who traveled back in time to kill her, also knew exactly her whereabouts. Similarly, the 2003 timeline also reveals that Quinn worked at the mall where Val and Brian were murdered. This provided his future self with knowledge of his whereabouts, allowing him to execute his plan without worrying about locating his victims.

2 Quinn from 2003 expresses disappointment in her present

Quinn seems very happy with school life

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When Quinn and Lucy try to fix the time machine, Quinn talks about her parents being away and tells Lucy that she hopes her future is better. The scene highlights how, despite being a good girl, Quinn is on the verge of losing all hope. In the original 2003 timeline, he probably lost all hope after being bullied by his schoolmates and rejected by Summer. Fortunately, in the new timeline of 2003, Lucy befriends him and helps him realize that he is not alone.

Breakdown of key data on time cutting

Directed by

Hannah MacPherson

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score

17%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

39%

Execution time

1 hour 30 minutes

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At an early point in time cutQuinn tries to explain to Lucy how altering an event in the present can have disastrous consequences in the future. Your own story seems to be the perfect example of the butterfly effect. Although many early childhood traumas contributed to him resenting his schoolmates, Summer’s rejection is what leads him to invent the machine and travel back in time to kill her.

1 Lucy and Quinn discover that the killer is from the future

They discover that he broke into the SONR laboratory before them

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Lucy and Quinn break into the SONR lab to gain access to the antimatter needed to power the time machine. However, when they arrive at the facility, they discover that someone else was already there before them. They deduce that the killer stole one of the cylinders containing antimatter, which leads them to realize that the killer is also from the future. He hopes to kill Summer and disappear from the timeline using the time machine before law enforcement can catch him. This clue is enough to reveal that Quinn is Sweetly Slasher’s killer in time cut.

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Time cut - poster

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ScreenRant Logo 3/10 Horror in timeScience fiction

A teenager goes back in time to the early 2000s to save her sister from a dangerous murderer.

Director Hannah Macpherson Release Date October 30, 2024 Writers Michael Kennedy, Hannah Macpherson Cast Madison Bailey, Megan Best, Michael Shanks, Antonia Gentry, Griffin Gluck Character(s) Lucy Field, Emmy Golden, Gil Running Time 95 minutes Main Genre Horror Expand

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