Movies like The Shortcut (2009)
The best movies like The Shortcut (2009) are The Caller (1987), Urban Legend (1998) and Lady in White (1988). If The Shortcut hooked you with its mystery and horror, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedScary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)6.5/10 from 2,980 votes
- NewestRedwood Diaries (2026)Released 2026
The Caller (1987)
One night, an unusual stranger in need asks a woman living alone in a house in the woods if he can use her phone. It soon becomes clear that they're playing a strange mind game and that there's something very wrong about the woods.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisUrban Legend (1998)
A college campus is plagued by a vicious serial killer murdering students in ways that correspond to various urban legends.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady in White (1988)
Locked in a school closet during Halloween 1962, young Frank witnesses the ghost of a young girl and the man who murdered her years ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wretched (2019)
A rebellious teenage boy, struggling with his parents' imminent divorce, encounters a terrifying evil after his next-door neighbor becomes possessed by an ancient witch that feasts on children.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Ends (2026)
A group of recent grads head out on a late night drive for grub, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before their paths diverge. Instead, they accidentally turn onto a never-ending, two-lane hellscape surrounded by untold horrors and cosmic forces beyond their understanding. Cramped together inside a Jeep Cherokee and with the miles stretching infinitely ahead, they face a choice: embrace their new existence or fight to escape it.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisPitfall (2025)
After a young man is separated from his friends in the woods, he falls into a ten-foot deep pit of spikes, impaling him through his leg and leaving him trapped. He quickly learns that his fall was not an accident.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)
Mary Lou Maloney, Hamilton High's Prom Queen of 1957, is killed during her coronation ceremony due to a prank gone wrong by her jilted boyfriend, Billy Nordham. Thirty years later, teen Vicki Carpenter is in the running for Prom Queen, but accidentally unleashes the vengeful spirit of Mary Lou, who will stop at nothing to be rightfully crowned, even if it means taking Vicki's poor body for a cruise!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, Halloween night, 1968. After playing a joke on a school bully, Stella and her friends decide to sneak into a supposedly haunted house that once belonged to the powerful Bellows family, unleashing dark forces that they will be unable to control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisI Still See You (2018)
Ten years after an apocalyptic event left the world haunted by ghosts, Veronica 'Ronnie' Calder receives a threatening message from beyond the grave. Joining forces with a mysterious classmate, Kirk, Ronnie descends into a shadow world that blurs the bounds of the living and the dead—and begins a desperate race against time to stop a cunning killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark Harvest (2023)
In a small Midwestern town, a deadly annual ritual unfolds when the mythical nightmare, Sawtooth Jack, rises from the cornfields and challenges the town’s teenage boys in a bloody battle of survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrong Turn (2021)
Jen and a group of friends set out to hike the Appalachian Trail. Despite warnings to stick to the trail, the hikers stray off course—and cross into land inhabited by The Foundation, a hidden community of mountain dwellers who use deadly means to protect their way of life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisStranger in the Woods (2024)
Olivia and her friends go on a vacation. After Olivia nearly drowns with a slit wrist in her bathtub after her fiancé's funeral, her friends suspect that she tried to kill herself, but she believes someone attacked her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisF (2010)
A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Unhealer (2021)
A botched faith healing bestows supernatural Shaman powers on a bullied teenager. When his lifelong tormentors pull a prank that kills someone he loves, he uses his powers for revenge and goes on a bloody rampage to settle the score.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisMona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2022)
A young woman with psychokinetic powers breaks out of a Louisiana asylum and makes her way to New Orleans, where she falls into the city’s netherworld of misfits and miscreants.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDie Alone (2024)
Lost in a world reclaimed by nature and overrun by mysterious creatures, Ethan, a young man with amnesia navigates the dangerous landscape in search of his lost love Emma. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he encounters Mae, a hardened and eccentric survivor. Together, Ethan and Mae face threats both human and otherwise before a fateful encounter with Kai unravels a secret that lies just beyond Ethan's fractured memory.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThis Is Not a Test (2026)
Sloane and four classmates take cover in Cortege High to escape a world plagued by the infected. As danger relentlessly pounds on the doors, Sloane begins to see the world through the eyes of those who actually want to live and takes matters into her own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Final (2010)
A group of high school outcasts get revenge on the students that torment them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & horror
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)
Retired military commander Colonel Dale Murphy hosts the simulated post-apocalyptic reality show where participants are challenged to survive a remote West Virginia wasteland. But the show turns into a nightmarish showdown when each realizes they are being hunted by an inbred family of cannibals determined to make them all dinner!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both horror & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEnter Nowhere (2015)
Three strangers arrive one by one to a mysterious cabin in the middle of nowhere after enduring separate life-altering predicaments. Searching for a way out of the woods, frustrated, hungry and battling to stay warm they discover their mysterious connection and realize what they have to do in order to get out of the woods alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRedwood Diaries (2026)
When strange entries begin appearing in her diary written in handwriting that isn't hers, new student Evie Quinn is pulled into a chilling mystery as the messages reveal secrets, predict impossible events, and point toward a truth someone has desperately tried to bury.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & mystery
The Woods That Wail (2025)
Three friends head into a notorious haunted forest for a camping trip, but things take a terrifying turn when one friend goes missing.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both horror & mystery
Roadgames (1981)
A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer in a van who lures young female hitchhiker victims on a desolate Australian highway.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRoad to Nowhere (2010)
A passionate filmmaker creating a film based upon a true crime casts an unknown mysterious young woman bearing a disturbing resemblance to the femme fatale in the story. Unsuspectingly, he finds himself drawn into a complex web of haunting intrigue: he becomes obsessed with the woman, the crime, her possibly notorious past, and the disturbing complexity between art and truth. From the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome, and London, new truths are revealed and clues to other crimes and passions, darker and even more complex, are uncovered.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisHer Study of a Killer (2023)
A group of Liberty High School's alumni are preparing for their fifteen-year reunion when the death of one of their most beloved teachers starts a chain of events filled with secrets and revenge no one expects.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExperiment in Terror (1962)
A man with an asthmatic voice telephones and assaults clerk Kelly Sherwood at home and coerces her into helping him steal a large sum from her bank.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWedding in Blood (1973)
In a small French town, the mayor discovers his wife is cheating on him, a betrayal that eventually leads to murder.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNo Way to Treat a Lady (1968)
Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor's apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe's live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSabotaging the Squad (2023)
Missy discovers the coveted role she's scored as head coach of her daughter's cheer squad comes with a deadly price.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Like The Shortcut and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Shortcut?
The closest matches to The Shortcut are The Caller (1987), Urban Legend (1998) and Lady in White (1988). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Shortcut?
Start with The Caller (1987), the closest match to The Shortcut.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Shortcut?
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), rated 6.5/10 by 2,980 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Shortcut?
Redwood Diaries (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Shortcut?
Yes: The Caller (1987), Urban Legend (1998) and Lady in White (1988).
How are movies similar to The Shortcut chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Shortcut, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.