On October 3rd, Netflix released the trailer for their new slasher film—Time Cut. Amidst the trailer being released, many people were up in arms about the uncanny similarities between Time Cut and another slasher released by Prime back in September of 2023–Totally Killer. Not only do both movies focus on a teen girl who must face the unsolved murder case of her morbid hometown, but they involve time travel into the past, with Time Cut being set back to 2003 and Totally Killer set back to 1987.
Netflix responded to this controversy by pointing out that Time Cut was filmed back in 2021, whereas Totally Killer was filmed in 2022. How did Totally Killer manage to be filmed, edited, and released before Time Cut’s debut? Well, that remains a mystery perhaps greater than the one “solved” at the end of the movie. Unfortunately, besides the difference in period, the only other major distinction between Time Cut and Totally Killer is in their execution, in which Totally Killer outperforms Time Cut.
Time Cut opens the film with a high school party scene set in 2003, focussing on FMC Lucy Field’s older sister, Summer. We soon learn that Summer is not only mourning the loss of her three best friends thanks to the “Sweetly Slasher”, but attending a party thrown in their honor while he’s still on the loose.
Before Summer enters the party, which of course takes place in a completely abandoned barn, she is stopped by a boy named Quinn, who hands her an envelope. Before she can devote any real attention to it, she is dragged into the party by her obnoxious ex-boyfriend, Ethan. Once we enter the party scene, we see Ethan raise a completely tone-deaf toast to the three deceased amigos, to which Summer leaves to go to the bathroom. While she’s gone, police chase partygoers who flee the scene, Summer is left in the bathroom unaware, proceeding to get attacked by the Sweetly Slasher who slices her body with a scythe.
We then take a time jump to 2024 where FMC Lucy Field is seen waking up in her bedroom and walking out to her backyard, checking the status of her 2024 NASA internship. Lo and behold, she gets in. Yet her excitement is put to a halt as she rides her scooter to school and reflects on her sister’s death VIA monologue sequence. She reveals it’s the anniversary of her sister Summer being killed.
Lucy’s parents react as she expected to the news of her internship with her father suggesting she interns at his company SONR instead, as her NASA internship entails spending three months in DC without their supervision.
The family of three later drives up to the abandoned barn where Summer’s memorial is held. Lucy escapes to search for a last-minute momento to place on her sister’s memorial, however, she is drawn to an ominous noise coming from the barn, naturally following it to discover a time machine with the words “SONR” written across the power source. Before she has any time to process this, the time machine selects the date April 16th, 2003, and blasts her into the past.
When she arrives in 2003, she cannot fathom this reality. Thus, she goes to her high school searching for some type of clarification. She approaches her high school science teacher (only he’s 21 years younger), and asks him for his opinion on time travel. But before he can give her a clear answer, Quinn, the mysterious character from the barn party, shares his input from the back of the room, expressing that no one should mess with time travel.
Next period, she discovers a crowd of students along with her sister watching as Ethan and his friends attempt to throw Quinn into a lake. Lucy stands up to Ethan and saves Quinn, which prompts the two of them to talk more, eventually prompting her to reveal she’s from the future. She later shows Quinn the time machine and asks for his help to fix it. They inspect the time machine in Quinn’s garage and he tells her he knows how to fix it as long as they can get another sample of the SONR energy source. Since Lucy’s dad works there, she says it’ll be no problem.
But Lucy’s original plans to avoid interference in this timeline are challenged when she gets to know her sister. She suddenly feels morally inclined to stop the killings of her sister’s best friends, which she is only partially successful in doing. However, as the third night of the killing spree approaches, Lucy starts to get cold feet and it becomes clear to Lucy that if Summer lives, she will cease to exist in the future. Nonetheless, she risks her own life to save Summer’s and ends up not only revealing but defeating the killer—Quinn from the future.
There are many opportunities for confusion with this plot twist. But things only become more confusing when Lucy decides she is going to stay behind in 2003, essentially living life completely off the grid.
We then see a montage of what are supposed to be wholesome moments between Lucy, Summer, and their parents, where for some odd reason, Lucy’s identity as their daughter continues to remain a secret. We also see Lucy qualifying for a 2003 NASA internship instead, which is ironic considering she has no real identity in 2003.
But let’s go back to Future Quinn being the killer for a second—how did this happen? And who is the original killer? Well, after hours spent pondering the ending of this movie, I’ve come to a partial understanding.
Future Quinn is the original killer. He is from Timeline 1, where he was relentlessly bullied by Summer’s friends. This Quinn then plotted his revenge and decided to research time travel with SONR. Once he figures it out, he travels back in time to kill Summer and her three best friends, setting the original 2003-2024 timeline into place. When Lucy miraculously travels back to 2003, she disrupts Future Quinn’s timeline, which in turn causes him to travel back in time to “fix” it, making him the only Sweetly Slasher.
Although this would clear up some of the misconceptions, it still fails to explain why/how the time machine was left __ in the barn, how Lucy was able to ditch her life back home and live in 2003, or when exactly the original timeline was created. Sure, we know it must have been sometime before Lucy was born, but when exactly would have been helpful to clarify.
Despite the confusing plot lines that come with this movie, I admit it was still a very entertaining watch. I appreciated the throwback to the early 2000s, as well as the enjoyable pacing of the movie overall. I also think that the acting was great, as well as the cinematography and soundtrack choices. However, it would’ve been great if the movie could have cleared up the several misconceptions that are left with viewers in the final sequence of the movie. It feels like there was never a proper resolution.
Sure, Lucy found closure by staying behind in 2003, living life off the grid completely unknown to her parents, but it would’ve helped to explain the many plot holes as well. Overall, this movie was made up of a great amount of wasted potential, and it would have been great to have seen it executed more effectively.