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

Warning! This post contains spoilers for Time Cut.

Almost throughout its runtime, Netflix’s Time Cut drops several subtle clues that give away the identity of its central Sweetly Slasher killer. Serving as another addition to Netflix’s catalog of original sci-fi movies, Time Cut does not delve too deep into exploring complex ideas with its time travel setup. Instead, it sticks to well-worn 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.

To highlight how the past’s events ripple into the future, Time Cut drops several hidden details throughout its runtime that secretly give away its final twist. Many first-time viewers will likely end up missing these details since the movie tries to misguide one through red herrings. However, viewers rewatching the time travel movie will notice that it reveals its biggest twist in its opening moments itself.

7 Summer Rejected Quinn’s Letter In The 2003 Timeline

The Rejection Was The Tipping Point In Quinn’s Story

One of the first clues revealing that Quinn is the Sweetly Slasher killer in Time Cut appears in the movie’s opening scene itself. As Summer makes her way to a party, Quinn innocently hands her a letter in which he pours his feelings for her. To his dismay, she ignores him and heads to the party. The movie later reveals that even after reading the letter, Summer had rejected Quinn by saying that she could never love him that way.

As future Quinn’s story suggests, the rejection eventually became a cannon event in his timeline, turning him into a resentful killer who traveled to the past and murdered Summer. After Lucy travels to the past, protects Quinn from bullies, and shows him that he, too, can have friends, Quinn’s timeline changes, prompting him to never become the killer. As a result, the canon event that encouraged him to murder Summer and her friends never happened in the first place.

6 Lucy Finds The Time Machine In The Barn Where Summer Was Killed

The Killer Emerges Out Of The Barn In The Opening Segment

In Time Cut‘s opening moments, the Sweetly Slasher killer suddenly walks out of the barn where the graduation party is being held. This early scene hints that he has kept his time machine inside the barn, and it travels with him every time he time jumps. In Lucy’s 2024 timeline, she first comes across the time machine when she walks into 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 His Future

After Lucy travels back in time and visits her science teacher, he introduces her to Quinn, who, according to him, is a physics genius. The fact that the teacher calls a high school student a genius foreshadows how Quinn will eventually build a time machine and use it to murder the ones who wronged him. Quinn backs his teacher’s claims by sharing how much he knows about time travel with Lucy, reminding her that altering the past can send ripples down the future and significantly change it.

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

4 Quinn Almost Gets Thrown In The River

The River Incident Was Another Event That Turned Him Into The Killer

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

3 2003’s Quinn Always Knew The Whereabouts Of The Murdered Teenagers

Quinn’s Past Helped Him Strategize His Murders In The Future

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 what her whereabouts were. Similarly, the 2003 timeline also reveals that Quinn worked at the shopping mall where Val and Brian were murdered. This equipped his future self with the knowledge of their whereabouts, allowing him to execute his plan without worrying about tracking down his victims.

2 2003’s Quinn Expresses His Disappointment Towards His Present

Quinn Seems Really Happy With School Life

When Quinn and Lucy try to fix the time machine, Quinn opens up about his parents’ absence and tells Lucy that he hopes his future is better. The scene highlights how, despite being a good kid, Quinn is on the edge of losing all hope. In the original 2003 timeline, he likely did lose all hope after his schoolmates bullied him and Summer rejected him. Fortunately, in the new 2003 timeline, Lucy befriends him and helps him realize he is not alone.

In an early moment from Time Cut, Quinn tries to explain to Lucy how altering one event in the present can lead to disastrous consequences in the future. His own story seems to be the perfect example of the butterfly effect. Although many early childhood traumas contributed to him becoming resentful towards his schoolmates, Summer’s rejection is what drives him to invent the machine and travel back in time to kill her.

1 Lucy & Quinn Learn The Killer Is From The Future

They Discover He Broke Into The SONR Lab Before Them

Lucy and Quinn break into the SONR Lab to get access to the anti-matter required to run the time machine. However, when they arrive at the facility, they discover someone else has already been there before them. They deduce the killer stole one of the cylinders containing the anti-matter, leading 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 enforcers can catch him. This clue is enough to give away that Quinn is the Sweetly Slasher killer in Time Cut.