The Shortcut

The Shortcut is another shining example of how one can almost never trust IMDb's rating system, or the users responsible for it. Either that, or I seriously don't understand the way it's supposed to be. However, if you do watch The Shortcut expecting a 5.0 rated film - you'll be very pleasantly surprised.

The way I see it, this film is divided into three parts. The first one is the longest and slowest, giving us the exposition and buildup which are quite good - family moves into a new place, the kids in school and their friends, the local urban legend of a place you shouldn't go to, the works! The second part starts about an hour after the beginning, involves a pretty nice twist and is much more fast-paced, with some cat and mouse chases just like in Slasher films. The final part is the ending, which completely blew my head off as I did not see it coming! I thought the film was above average but not by far, and then the ending really got it some more points.

The acting is good, especially by Shannon Woodward as Lisa. The flashes from earlier years were also well used, and the cinematography wasn't anything special but wasn't bad.

All in all, I really enjoyed this film, as I'm a sucker for good plot twists, especially towards the ending. The Shortcut, while not a masterpiece, is definitely recommended!

Normally, I wouldn't give a PG horror movie the time of day. Films like Twilight are not my idea of vampire movies. But, I just watched Tucker and Dale vs Evil and I wanted to see Katrina Bowden again.

The movie was mostly disappointing through the first two acts. It wasn't until there were only 20 minutes left that we saw any real action. Then, it was intense as the kids were running for their lives.

The story was predictable. I won't give anything away. The ending was a jolt and showed some real creativity.

No standout performances, except for maybe Raymond J. Barry, who played the old man in the woods.

You can find something better to watch.

What can I say? It's a B-slasher flick with a pretty good cast and a weak plot. Really, the movie starts out very very weak. I was afraid it was going Disney horror on me. The script is really cheesy in the parts and the scares are so ridiculously stupid, it's not even worth laughing about. But as the film progresses the mood starts to change and the characters become more and more developed and the suspense starts to build. I really loved the character development here. I especially loved Mark (Dave Franco) who is really a funny, cowardly guy. He has some really funny back and forths with Lisa (Shannon Woodward) who is also very well developed and fun to watch. So overall, I liked the acting and characters. The plot was super weak. I didn't understand why in the world some random teenagers would care that much about going to that man's house. There reasoning was they wanted to know if that man was killing dogs. Well if he was, why wouldn't they just call higher authority to go check it out? Nope, they had to be on the case themselves. Which I suppose I can't fault since our little bleeders need a creepy place to get slashed away anyways. The deaths are all pretty well done, even though none of them are creative or gory in any way. It's very bland so I wouldn't recommend this to gore hounds.

The finale, which comes a bit too soon, is very predictable but it's still a nice little twist for this low-budget slasher. Even if it is a bit outlandish and confusing.

Overall, The Shortcut has it's moments, but overall it's an average B-slasher. Nothing more.

Had I known beforehand it was a PG-13 horror, I might have passed it up. I wound up enjoying it even though it could've used more gore or at least showed more of the kills. I was wondering why they all happened off camera until I saw it was PG-13 after I finished it. The twist ending in the final 2 minutes made absolutely no sense when you look back on the film. I won't give the twist away, but it was completely illogical when you look back on the interactions the lead boy had with his mother earlier in the film. Without that absurd twist, I would've bumped this up to 7 stars. Still watchable though...until the unbelievable twist comes that will leave you scratching your head in disbelief.

THE SHORTCUT pretty much has a familiar formula but what sets it apart from the other films of it type is that it has a more fleshed out storyline that develops the main characters and the villains as well, its also never really in a hurry to get to the hacking and slashing parts its actually very plot driven and not even too concerned about showcasing a bunch of gore, it even generates a decent amount of suspense and manages to establish an unsettling mood exactly when it needs to.

The acting is very good, I don't know any of the cast members or I might not have seen them before and it has fairly likable characters which is something you barely see in these types of films, normally you get a bunch of teens that annoy the living hell out of you you just want to smash your DVD player in two because the killer is taking to long to kill them.

Overall, out of many of the recent horror fair I've seen THE SHORTCUT probably has the lowest body count and is the least gore driven but at the same time its also one of the better horror films I've seen, it has an ending that sucks but that's normal for most better than average horror films.