R F Brown

An upshot of digital technology in  flimmaking and editing is that even shitty movies look much better than they used.  Sometimes it’s hard to recognize shit right up close these days (although I got wise and walked out on the awful Drag Me to Hell earlier this year).  The Shortcut is a good looking movie with good looking young people. Under the high resolution and laser skin treatments is a lame B-horror movie that is neither scary nor camp.  Although I suspect some executive producer thought it might become either.

Two angelic teenage brothers move into a new town.  Inexplicably they get themselves involved in an amateur investigation into the goings on at the wooded property of a mysterious old man.  The man is rumored to kill dogs and nosy, sex-crazed adolescents.  What they stumble into is the semi-sad story of two elderly brothers, hiding family secrets, none of which are spelled out, believable, or interesting.  As a matter of course, all the hot teens get picked off one by one until the end when a sequel-obliging secret about the two teenage brothers is put forward.  In the meantime, there is practically no blood, no premarital sex, and no catatonic half-naked last surviving girl at the end.  Come on!  What do we watch these things for, the superior acting?