Six months after the death of their friend, a group of four men hike a Swedish trail in his honor. When one among them twists his ankle, they decide to cut their hike back in half by cutting through the vast northern Swedish woods. Things go from screwed up to royally fucked in short order. Spending a night avoiding a downpour in a dilapidated cabin, the men all suffer horrifying nightmares and come to realize they are being stalked by something large that calls the woods home. The men attempt to hold onto reason as the situation becomes more unreasonable and tensions mount within the gang. Guilt, sacrifice, cowardice and tree branch impalement all figure into the story. Adapted from the excellent novel by Adam Nevill, the film makes the wise choice of excising the whole black metal band subplot that never really clicked in the book but the movie also ends up feeling like a watered down retelling whic was an inevitability when pacing is considered for a Netflix audience. Still, it’s a decent enough horror flick with a breathtaking location, a fully realized folkloric nightmare (one of the coolest creatures I have seen in a very long time) and the always welcome presence of Rafe Spall. “If the shortcut was a shortcut, it wouldn't be called a shortcut, it would be called a route.”
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