Short Cut Road (2003 Video) User Reviews

"Short Cut" your viewing of this turkey...

[MaxPrimal-1 · 1/10 · 30 December 2005]

I give this movie one star because there's no "zero stars" option. I'm not sure if they were inspired by the success of "The Blair Witch Project," but the difference there is that it took advantage of its unknown, relatively inexperienced cast. Here, the actors are forced to do the heavy lifting, and every single one embarrasses themselves. Director Marc Selz proves himself to be a hack of the Uwe Boll school, producing dreck of the highest order. It looks as if they took a handicam and shot an after-school project. It blows my mind that this thing got an actual release with the sub-par acting, god-awful dialog, and below average editing. Not a bad movie per se, if you're just out of high school and looking for something to do in your spare time. But an actual DVD release? Holy crap! Emphasis on crap. Save yourselves and avoid this turkey like the plague!

A solid little low-budget slasher film

[Woodyanders · 7/10 · 14 November 2006]

Six college kids driving back from a rock festival run afoul of a couple of psycho hillbilly brothers when their van breaks down on a remote rural road in the middle of nowhere. You can basically fill in the blanks as to what happens next, so it's a real testament to writer/director/producer/cinematographer/co-editor Marc Selz's skill and talent that this solid little low-budget indie horror shocker packs an unexpectedly strong and startling knock-the-wind-out-of-your-lungs lingering gut punch. This up to snuff number hits all the necessary slice'n'dice body count slasher bases to pass muster as a definite winner: capable direction, likable characters, a shivery gloom-doom synthesizer score, rough, grainy, yet still fairly polished photography which lends a pleasingly raw, stark and jump-out-at-you gritty immediacy to the grisly proceedings, genuinely hair-raising outbursts of ferociously gory and ugly violence, a tightly constructed plot, a refreshingly terse and to the point filler-free 75 minute running time, a substantial amount of hard, gripping and sweaty tension, and, best of all, one hell of a socko surprise twist ending. Overall, there's enough cinematic strengths present and accounted for to compensate for the hit-or-miss acting and extremely variable sound quality.