Six friends (including Mario Lopez and Bentley Mitchum), consisting of two couples, go to a cabin in the woods. 33 years ago, a kid saw his mother get raped and murdered and now he?s living in the basement and peeks at his prey through?wait for it?a crack in the floor. That?s the plot. 20 years after Friday the
13th and that?s the goddamn plot. And I?m not leaving out anything here. There are no plot twists, no jolts of originality, not a single reason to distinguish this from the 72,479 similar movies that feature almost the exact same thing. You get boob shots. You get some cut-rate blood. You get a couple mediocre P.O.V. stalking scenes. You get Bo Hopkins as a small-town sheriff for the seven billionth time in his career. Attractive young people get killed by an unseen hunter after doing drugs/revealing their pregnancies/having sex/tell dumb urban legends involving non-speaking cast members of An American Werewolf in London/engaging in bad dream sequences/whatever. Okay, so that?s all a bit on the harsh side. A Crack in the Floor does have a couple of moments of interest. These bits, however, seem so wildly out of place that they just serve to expose how ludicrously typical the rest of the movie is. First off, on the way to said Cabin in the Woods, the group of six stop for gas and food. They decide to stop at a place advertising ?Free Fride Chikin Meet,? run by a one-armed Rance Howard. Howard offers them chicken, and a couple of them stumble upon the chicken killing grounds, where they run into Gary Busey, in a suit, covered in blood and dirt. Busey asks if they?d like to snap of the chicken?s necks, and tells them ?The minute they die, you can smell the rabies leaving the body. It?s spectacular.? Then the group freaks out and drives away. It?s a great scene, and the final bit with Busey and Howard talking and Busey mumbling incoherently is a terrifically bizarre moment. I?d be willing to be it was completely improvised, as though Gary Busey just showed up on the set one day, talked everyone into letting him into the movie, and started, well, Gary Buseying around. Unfortunately, this scene has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REST OF THE MOVIE. The other point of interest is the ending?an abrupt, shocking, memorable climax that recalls The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It?s quite good, and I admire the balls of the filmmakers to completely break cliché. But it doesn?t excuse the flaws. A ?rapist? keeps his overalls on. A shower scene ends with a fake scare. Injuries vary from shot to shot. A killer that comes back after getting a pickaxe to the back. A sherriff?s assistant that won?t believe anyone. (This, actually, reminded me of a little-seen slasher parody sketch from ?The State,? in which a sheriff and a drifter argue endlessly and over-dramatically and end up kissing.) The cast is fine (though Lopez already made of these things, the forgettable Wisconson-shot Fever Lake.) and includes Tracy Scoggins as the killer?s mother (under, I hope, lots of make-up) and character vets [color=#0000ff]Bill Erwin (whose character, like Busey?s and Howard?s, is interesting but irrelevant) and Frank Collison. There?s nothing really wrong with the photography or direction. But there?s nothing really right with it either, so unless you?re a big Gary Busey completist (though who isn?t?), avoid, avoid, avoid.[/color]
September 13, 2006
