Warning! This post contains spoilers for Netflix’s Time Cut.

Although Netflix’s Time Cut focuses less on explaining how its time travel works, it drops a few subtle clues about how its characters go back and forth between timelines. Primarily set in 2003, Time Cut sets out to be another addition to the long list of coming-of-age films that attempt to spin their narratives into a sci-fi yarn. However, despite its best efforts to rank among the better films in the sub-genre, Time Cut has failed to leave its mark among viewers and critics and holds an underwhelming Rotten Tomatoes score of 13%.

The movie’s low critical ratings highlights how it gets many things wrong and struggles to establish itself as a unique addition to the genre. However, despite its pitfalls, the Netflix horror movie also manages to get a few things right. For instance, unlike most time travel movies, Time Cut attempts to explain how exactly its central time machine works. The explanation is not scientifically accurate in any way, but it is hard not to appreciate how the film does not completely gloss over the mechanics of its time travel.

Time Cut’s Time Machine & Anti-Matter Explained

The Movie’s Portrayal Of Time Travel Is Heavily Fictional

Almost midway through its runtime, Time Cut features a scene in which Lucy and Quinn try to figure out how the central time machine works. They learn it fires a laser from one end and anti-matter through the other. According to the movie, the interaction between the matter and anti-matter particles from the two points in the machine opens a microscopic wormhole. This wormhole, in turn, becomes a gateway for the characters to travel to any point in time.

While it is interesting how the movie tries to involve some scientific gobbledygook in its explanation of time travel, a lot of it does not really make sense. The concept of entangling matter and anti-matter can have intriguing implications in quantum mechanics — where matter is any physical substance that has mass and occupies space, while anti-matter consists of corresponding particles that have the reversed charge, parity, and time of “ordinary matter.” However, Time Cut does not seem to take its own explanation too seriously and focuses more using time travel as a vessel to drive its drama.

Who Really Made Time Cut’s Time Machine & Why

Quinn Made It To Seek Revenge

Time Cut‘s ending twist suggests that Quinn made the time machine. Although the movie does not explicitly mention this, its 2003 timeline reveals that Quinn was always interested in physics and fascinated by time travel. The film also implies that in Lucy’s original timeline, Quinn was heavily bullied by his peers in school and no one did anything to look out for him. He spent most of his early years in school without any friends, which made him grow resentful towards the people in his school.

To ensure no one catches him for his crimes, Quinn used his time machine in
Time Cut
to also disappear after committing the murders, leaving no trace of his actions in the present.

Quinn also confessed his feelings to Summer through a letter, but Summer rejected him by saying she could not love him like that. This made Quinn harbor feelings of extreme hate towards Summer and her friends. Therefore, to seek revenge, he traveled back in time and killed them. To ensure no one catches him for his crimes, Quinn used his time machine in Time Cut to also disappear after committing the murders, leaving no trace of his actions in the present. However, little did he realize that Lucy would eventually find his time machine and save Summer.