The Shortcut is a 2009 American horror film directed by Nicholaus Goossen, written by Dan Hannon and Scott Sandler, and starring Andrew Seeley, Shannon Woodward, Dave Franco, and Katrina Bowden.
The film's plot centers on two brothers who discover a rarely used shortcut and learn its dark secret.
Released in North America by Indigomotion, a division of Leomax, on September 29, 2009, the film received mixed reviews and was a commercial failure.
As Irene makes her way out of the shortcut, a young boy Benjamin attacks her, hitting her over the head with a rock and killing her.
It is revealed that Benjamin has growing health issues and eventually begins to murder anyone he sees using the shortcut.
Present day - Derek has recently moved to a new town and school and has befriended the feisty Lisa and Mark, while taking a liking to Christy.
That night, Derek returns home to his grandma's house, whom the family have moved in with after the death of their dad.
While at school, Derek makes a move on Christy before he is approached by Taylor who has heard about the dead dog on the shortcut.
Derek's mom then tells him that the old man on the shortcut is the last living member of the Hartley family who she thinks "just wants to be left alone."
Taylor tells them that a friend's dog has also gone missing and that the old man is a veteran so he spends every Friday night at the memorial hall.
In the basement, Mark and Taylor discover an old man, Benjamin, shackled to a large wheel by a chain that is padlocked around his neck.
Derek and Christy arrive at the house and find a distraught Lisa who warns them they need to leave.
Just then, the old man, revealed to be Ivor, arrives and crashes into the back of Derek and Christy's car and then tries to shoot them.
Derek is shocked at first, but then says he is disappointed in his brother for allowing this to happen again, and reveals that Tobey murdered their father.
Derek reassures Tobey they will be able to cover up her death, implying that they both will eventually follow the same fate that Ivor and Benjamin did.
On June 5, 2008, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Adam Sandler would be launching a horror-focused imprint called Scary Madison, through his production company Happy Madison Productions, and The Shortcut would be Scary Madison's first production, co-producing with Leomax Entertainment, whose theatrical distribution branch Indigomotion set to release it, with Shannon Woodward, Andrew Seeley and Dave Franco set to star.
[3][4] Hannon recalled seeing his screenplay be "rewritten 50 million times" by other writers before production commenced.
[2][5] Nicholaus Goossen signed on to direct, and production was announced to commence in August 2008, with plans for a theatrical release.
[2][6][7][8] Preparation of the production design took 6 weeks, to develop settings covering the film's timeline, which spanned from the 1940s to 2009.
If only producers were sly enough to grant the production the edgier R-rating the story demanded and had allowed Goossen to shoot the missing bits of character needed to punctuate the film, The Shortcut might have been a genuinely great little horror film worthy of a theatrical release.