USA
Review:JA Kerswell
An abysmal post-SCREAM, scatologically obsessed slasher. I'd prefer a crack to the head, rendering me unconscious, to sitting through it ever again. A group of friends stumbles across a murder cabin deep in the woods during a hike, but don’t have the good grace to die quickly enough. Awful in nearly every regard. Only a truly bizarre cameo by Gary Busey—where he talks about chicken-scented farts and rushes off camera due to a sudden bout of diarrhea—lifts it briefly above the tedious.
The film opens with a prologue showing a woman (TV regular Tracy Scoggins) burying her husband outside their Amish-style log cabin and telling her young son, Jeremiah (Kyle Patrick Feuer), that life will now be hard for the pair—which quickly proves to be something of an understatement. Cue two hillbillies with rotten teeth who show up, slit her throat, and bash the young boy over the head, leaving him for dead. 33 years later, Jeremiah (Roger Hewlett) has grown into a hermit who lives in the cabin's basement, spies on unwelcome visitors through a crack in the floor, and kills anyone who stumbles across his lair. In other words, not an Airbnb super host.
Local Sheriff (Bo Hopkins) usually only deals with small problems, such as the police station’s elderly handyman clogging the toilet with his giant turds. However, reports of missing people have been increasing, and when someone spots a vehicle at the bottom of the local reservoir, he is shocked to learn that dozens of vehicles are submerged there. Meanwhile, a group of old high school friends is planning their annual reunion trip, organised by Lehman (Mario Lopez). He, along with his new girlfriend Heidi (Daisy McCrackin later seen in HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002)), the stoner couple Billy (Jason Oliver Lipsett) and Sunny (Francesca Orsi), and Johnny (Bentley Mitchum) and his secretly pregnant girlfriend Kate (Justine Priestley), make the mistake of heading straight into murder county.
After a run-in at a hillbilly gas station (more of which later), the group heads into the woods for a hike, but after one of them twists an ankle, they make the ill-advised decision to camp for the night in Jeremiah’s cabin …
It is clearly intended as something of a love letter to ‘80s slashers (backwoods slaughter, the stoner couple, and even a butterball sheriff (with Hopkins near unrecognizable compared to his previous slasher-lawmaker turn in SWEET 16 (1982), some twenty years before this)). However, the film misfires on pretty much every level. Intended humor falls flat, and the film doesn’t even have the good grace to provide many unintended laughs. Attempts at suspense are even worse, with a killer who looks like a portly Emo Philips in an ill-fitting suit, bumbling around with all the menace of Barney Bear. Inexplicably, at the two-thirds mark, when things should be ramping up, the film decides it is the right time to get the group to talk, and talk, and then talk some more. Lopez looks smug throughout (who knows why) and delivers a monologue about a frostbite victim performing cunnilingus (“At least when he’s 69ing a chick his nose won’t get stuck her pooper”). The rest of the cast look like they were there under duress, giving performances that run the gamut from noncommittal to vacant. One of them even utters, at one point, “I’ve had enough of this shit!”—and I related. Hard.
The film briefly roars to life for five minutes (which is how long Gary Busey’s gonzo cameo lasts, even though he’s usually top-billed, as the aptly named Tyler Trout). Billy and Sunny find dead chickens behind the gas station and are surprised to see Busey holding an axe, who tells them that a dog ran amok and he’s cleaning up the mess. He asks them if they would like to ring one of the chickens’ necks, inexplicably enthusing, “You can smell the rabies leave their body.” When Sunny gets nauseated at the sight, Busey proffers a severed chicken wing and tells her to use it as a suppository—telling Billy that the added benefit will be that her farts will smell like Southern fried chicken! He then says to Billy with heartfelt sincerity, “Hold that thought in your heart.” Understandably, the couple scarper out of there at the earliest opportunity. Tyler watches the group drive off before telling the gas station owner (played by director Ron Howard and Clint Howard’s Dad Rance) that he is thinking of moving to Brazil, before excusing himself because he has a sudden case of the shits. It’s the kind of scene that comes so far out of left field that you can’t help but think you’ve been spiked with some kind of fast-acting hallucinogen. How much of it was in the script, or how much was Busey ad-libbing, is open to debate, but it is certainly a WTF moment that briefly elevates the film into mind-bendingly bizarre territory. Nothing more is seen of Busey. His character presumably headed to South America or spent the rest of the movie on the toilet.
A CRACK IN THE FLOOR features another celebrity cameo, with David Naughton (of AN AMERICAN IN LONDON (1981) fame) briefly appearing as an emergency responder who kills people in search of an organ donor for his girlfriend, in a visualisation of a campfire-type tale told by one of the group in the cabin during one of their epic chats. The film was shot in the spring of 2000, with Hopkins pulling out of a play in South Carolina in March that year on the promise of working with Busey (the pair aren’t on-screen together, and he’s killed off pretty early on). Justine Priestley (sister of BEVERLY HILLS 90210 star Jason) told Femme Fatales Magazine, “I’m the last one to die,” describing the plot, “There are these stupid idiots, and they all go into the woods, and the bad evil guy kills them off one by one."
A total misfire by the otherwise talented pairing of Corbin Timbrook and Sean Stanek. Although shot on 35mm, it understandably bypassed theaters by a wide margin and was eventually released to video in the United States in April 2001.
BODY COUNT 11:
Female 5 / Male 6
A CRACK IN THE FLOOR (2001) Trailer
