“A Crack in the Floor”
Movie #17: 31 Days of Horror Challenge 2017
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A group of college friends from L.A. go on a camping trip. They decide to camp in an abandoned cabin in the woods that isn’t quite as abandoned as it looks.
The movie starts out… not well. We have a mother and son, dressed as if they’re puritans or something, burying their husband/father in front of a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and talking about how they need to wait for the second coming of Jesus. Then a couple of miscreants show up, rape and murder the mother and beat the boy. Jump ahead 33 years and it’s 2001. Sure.
It continues rather by the numbers, as a group of hikers disappear after stumbling across the cabin and the local sheriff’s department starts to investigate a car found submerged in a local lake. The film really drags as the main characters, who are utterly forgettable, are introduced, including Mario Lopez as Lehman and Daisy McCrackin as Heidi. Bentley Mitchum actually gives a pretty terrific performance as Johnny, as much as the script and direction allow.
Oh, but then we meet the “gatekeepers,” or “harbingers,” you know, the ones that try to warn the stupid kids that shit is going to get really weird. And these guys, the guys who run the gas station, the one armed Floyd Fryed (Rance Howard) and blood splattered suit wearing, axe wielding Tyler Trout (Garey Busey). “Take this chicken wing, it’s soft, and use it as a suppository.” I would watch this movie just for the scenes with these two gentlemen.
Unfortunately we never get to the really weird shit. The kill scenes are uninspired, and the music needs a bit of help.
This is not terrible for first time for co writers/directors Sean Stanek and Corbin Timbrook. I’m left curious enough to check out what they’ve done and learned since this film. I think they tried to go too darkly serious, when it was the dark humor that made the successful moments in this cabin-in-the-woods, slasher. I really appreciate what they tried to do with the ending, but, as with most of the rest of the film, it fell flat.
