The Rusted (2015) User Reviews

Has Potential

[zihuancaopi · 16 January 2016]

This is the kind of story not suited for a short film of this length. With a full 40 minutes this could be great, but with half that time and so many different tones the plot gets lost.

There isn't a clear story, and for that the short suffers. We get a little horror, some drama, and a touch of thriller all in the span of 20 minutes and it all has promise and potential, but it doesn't lead anywhere.

But, on the plus side, the acting is quite good. Josh Hutcherson is one of the more notable actors of his age and generation and he actually shows his chops here pretty well. He brings a decent sense of emotion and weight to the scenes and pulls it off convincingly. Jena Malone is a notable character actress these days and she has a close relationship with Hutcherson off camera, which comes off well in the film. The two play off one another pretty good and I wouldn't mind seeing this brother-sister dynamic and the family drama play out a lot more.

The camera work is good as well, and on a technical level, everything works. It's just too short or there are just too many things being attempted. I feel if they had stuck with the family drama card, this would have been much better. For that it is though, it shows a lot of promise.

Good basics, weak outcome

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 4 December 2015]

"The Rusted" is an American 20-minute (17 without credits) short film from a couple weeks ago. It was written and directed by Kat Candler, a fairly prolific filmmaker in the last 15 years. The star in here is Josh Hutcherson of course, a familiar face to all who have seen "Hunger Games". Co-lead Jena Malone is fairly famous too. Unfortunately, they did not manage to build a nice little movie around these 2, which is quite a shame as this film looks like it had a decent budget. It goes pretty much nowhere. A touch of horror, a touch of mystery, a touch of family drama, but none of these areas is really elaborated on convincingly. Also, it is not half as atmospheric as it attempts to be. This film was a bit of a disappointment. Not recommended.