Shortcut Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Shortcut Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 17, 2022

Shortcut is a Horror film from Director Alessio Liguori that pits a handful of teenagers against a mythical monster. The location is deeply secluded woodlands, the outlook is grim, and the chances for survival are low. The picture pushes through the usual content: the characters barely escape from the threat, unearth the lore surrounding it, and devise a plan to stop it. It's a simple formulaic picture but it's formula done extraordinarily well. The film cannot be labeled an indie gem, but it comes close: it's lean, it's focused, and the characters are actually halfway well drawn. There's quite a bit to like here, including creature design and atmosphere, yielding a picture that is better than anyone would expect it to be, especially in the moody first act.

A spectacular lunar eclipse event which will not be seen again for two decades has a handful of bus-bound teens talking. It’s enough to keep them occupied as they travel through lonely back roads, but the conversation will quickly shift from astronomical activity to blood and guts horror. When the bus comes across a roadblock, the driver, Joseph (Terence Anderson), turns down an old beaten path through the woods in hopes of scooting around the mess. Moments later, in an eerily foggy landscape, they come across a dead animal lying on the road. Joseph leaves to investigate and clear it off the road, only to return moments later with a gun to his head and a wild man assuming command of the bus and its precious cargo. One of the teens, Karl (Zander Emlano), recognizes the man as an escaped prisoner named Pedro Minghella (David Keyes) who has a fetish for eating teenagers’ tongues.

Pedro orders Joseph to continue driving, but when mechanical failure disables the bus in the middle of a tunnel, Jospeh's repair work turns deadly when a frightening creature tears him to pieces. Now, the teens – Karl along with Nolan (Jack Kane), Bess (Sophie Jane Oliver), Reggie (Zak Sutcliffe), and Queenie (Molly Dew) – find themselves under gun and under fear as both an escaped prisoner and a crazed creature threaten their lives. With nowhere to run and no way of knowing how to fight the creature, a desperate night of flight, and perhaps also fight, will force the teens to face the most harrowing challenges of their lives.

This is in no way a novel film, but it is very atmospheric and dark and slickly made, not slickly in a kinetic way but rather thoughtful and compositionally interesting. Liguori and screenwriter Daniele Cosci do well to handle genre staples with class, never trying to break new ground but rather to make the best movie they can from the materials available to them. And, from a limited selection of genre tropes and with what is clearly a smaller budget and basic locations, they have maximized their film's potential, and then some. The result is a picture that just exemplifies the modern indie Horror scene in all ways: narrative, characters, aesthetics, technical qualities, and more. It effortlessly draws the viewer into the bus and later in the spartan locale where the lore develops and the characters build a plan to fight for their survival.

The creature design is interesting; it's seen often but kept in the dark so as not to betray every little detail and keep its presence more atmospherically menacing. Like so much else about the film, the design is not any way a radical departure from some garden variety snarling creature -- it looks like a a slimy deformed troll with sharp teeth -- but it is effectively presented and manages to up the horror quotient by mere presence alone. The film is actually a little bit of a lesser experience once it has been seen, which is at the end of the first act. A later reveal might have paid off, because the second and third acts lack the same artful elegance and draw as the open, but even if the movie steadily declines as it moves along there is no denying that this is a very good genre entry that is well worth the genre fan's time and money investment.

Shortcut Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shortcut cuts a major corner for its Blu-ray release, arriving on a burned BD-25 disc rather than a pressed disc. This does not impact the presentation's essential qualities and characteristics; it plays fine, and the movie actually looks very good. The 1080p picture, sourced from the original digital photography, yields a picture that appears to be near best case scenario. The picture is very crisp and sharp, offering fantastic clarity to the bus exterior, the roadway, and foliage as seen in the opening act. Characters are clearly defined with impressively sharp facial features and clothing lines. The creature effects, while limited to low light viewing, also offer very finely detailed definition to the slimy exterior and sharp teeth. Colors are a little muted by design with the one standout being the red bus which pops with very bold intensity to contrast against the otherwise cool grays and subdued greens that play in the open. From there on out the movie is very low light with little opportunity for real color dazzle, but stability holds even in challenging lighting. There is some encroaching noise and some problematic banding and macroblocking in some places during the lower light scenes and sequences, but nothing that really ruins the experience. Overall, this is probably near best case scenario for the film's source photography and postproduction work.

Shortcut Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film arrives on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Dialogue is a little shallow in the opening bus scenes, lost under slightly more prominent music, but it springs to well prioritized life for the duration thereafter. The track is certainly not one of finely engineered delight. It's straightforward but does offer music in good working order with wide front end spacing and effectively immersive surround content. Location details are effective, whether slight supports or prominent creature growls and character screams. The track finds good balance in all presentation parameters beyond that iffy opening dialogue. Most listeners should be satisfied with what is on offer here.

Shortcut Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Gravitas Ventures releases Shortcut to Blu-ray with only one supplement: the film's Trailer (1080p, 1:10). No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

Shortcut Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even through rote mechanics the movie shines. Even if the characters are well-drawn but ultimately forgettable, the movie delights. Even as the creature isn't too interestingly designed, it's appropriately scary. The filmmakers get mood and atmosphere and tension pretty much right, and even if the second half can't match the first, this is a rock-solid movie that genre fans will want to watch. The Blu-ray offers good video and audio presentations as well, and while the absence of supplements disappoints, it also doesn't surprise. Recommended.