The Movie: Shortcut
The Director: Alessio Liguori
The Cast: Jack Kane, Zak Sutcliffe, Andrei Claude, Sophie Jane Oliver, Terence Anderson, Zander Emlano, Emma Giua, Molly Dew
The Story: A group of five classmates is trapped inside their school bus after a mysterious creature invades the road. Time runs and every passing minute decreases their survival chances against the constant threats of that unknown entity.
The Review:
This movie was about what I was expecting it to be while also being a lot more than I was expecting it to be. What I mean by that is that it delivers exactly as advertised as a dark, scary, and fun horror movie focused on a group of teens and it is also a more dark, scary, and fun movie than I was expecting it to be. When I see a cast of characters full of teenagers in a horror movie, I expect the scares and the gore to be minimized all the way down to a PG rating or maybe PG13 but this was not the case with this movie.
I wouldn't say that this is a blood soaked gore fest by any means although the filmmakers were not afraid to kill of a couple characters nor were they shy about putting all of them into some pretty intense situations. What I thought might be more Goonies turned out to be a lot more of a legit horror movie although there was just a little bit of that Donner and Spielberg charm thrown in. The cast has a good mix of personalities that all work well together even if everything is built off of some pretty standard stereotypes. Tough rebel kid, nerdy girl with glasses, chunky kid that loves cheeseburgers and delivers comic relief. You know that kind of stuff.
The creature in the movie, I won't go into full detail, but it has the look and demeanor of something that might have crept out from the deepest mines of Moria and it screeches like one of the Nazgul so lots of Lord of the Rings influence. Even the score has an epic and adventurous quality to it that reminded me of Howard Shore's classic soundtrack which I thought was a bit excessive for this movie but whatever, it was all fun.
The Verdict:
Shortcut is a really fun movie that is tailor made for drive ins and late night viewing parties. Not excessively deep into the horror genre although by no means light hearted fare either, this movie has found a sweet spot that just about everyone can enjoy.
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