SOMETHING WICKED STALKS KIDS TRAPPED INSIDE A STALLED BUS
★★★☆☆ (Good for One Viewing)
Director: Alessio Liguori
2020
Shortcut is a simple and sometimes silly horror movie about precocious scamps fighting for their lives after their bus stalls in the woods. Despite mistakes in the way of plot holes and character development, this is an easygoing film that will appeal to anyone who loves watching kids use their brains and brawn to fight monsters in It and Stranger Things. This is one of those fairly tame horror films for audiences made up of people who like mild scares, so if you have a skittish friend, Shortcut is a good low-key pick for movie night.
The film starts with a bus driving through a countryside so remote, there are no other cars. The load consists of five pre-teens and a grizzled bus driver who the kids seem to respect and adore. As they reach a shadowy woods, the road is blocked by a large tree so the driver takes the shortcut and passes through more fields before ending up on another forest road…blocked by a dead deer. As the driver gets out to move the animal he hears something that frightens him, but as the bus races into a tunnel, the lights go off and the engine stalls. As a mysterious force tries to get at the occupants, the rest of the film involves those trapped inside trying to escape their predicament.
In the beginning, we hear a voiceover from one of the kids, so we assume at least one survives, but without an anchored protagonist, we’re not sure whom. One guy named Nolan is pushed as our hero, but he and his love interest are as interesting as, well, riding a bus. Sure, they’re kind and brave and the girl likes to draw, but if someone wrote these lovebirds out of the film you wouldn’t even notice. The other three youngsters are the reason to keep watching because they’re familiar Breakfast Club characters. There’s the cute-at-as-button “I.Q”, a girl who can solve almost any riddle, the hot-head greaser kid Reggie, whose first instinct is defiance, and then there’s my favorite, big-cheeked Karl, who is very confident in his martial arts skills.
Though there are some interesting visuals, most of the movie is mired in darkness (necessary considering a plot point), so I suggest you watch it with the lights off so you can appreciate the big reveal of the monster. The costume is a neat-looking design, but completely underutilized, especially in the lagging last half of the movie where you’re confronted with plot holes so big, Andre the Giant could fit in them. An escaped prisoner and a bizarre radio announcement of a rare eclipse are just convoluted distractions in a poorly edited script that also gives us an amateurish final scene, shoved in because “horror movies have to have one last jump scare." In the end, there’s no reason to hate or love this film. Shortcut is an inoffensive option for anyone itching for more creature-killing kids who band together despite their differences.
GENRES: Diverse Characters, Feminist-Friendly, Monster/Creature, Teens in Peril
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