Being
hippies, Prof. Hopper’s parents are by definition trapped in time. In their
case, it is also literally true. After years of looking, the archeology
professors will finally stumble into the rift in the space-time continuum that
swallowed them up. When he subsequently disappears, some of his students will
follow along behind him in Mark Dennis & Ben Foster’s Time Trap (trailer
here), which screens during the 2017 Austin Film Festival.
After
years of searching the desert, Hopper finally turns up his parents’ hippy van.
Naturally, he ventures into the nearby cave in search of any traces, even
though he must pass through an invisible but tangible barrier. Obviously, he is
not coming back anytime soon, so Taylor and Jackie, two of the biggest
brown-nosers in his class, head out looking for him. They will need wheels, so
they hit up poor Cara, who has long carried a torch for Taylor. To give the
film a bit of a Goonies flavor (which
it even references), Cara brings her little sister Veeves, who in turn invites
along the obnoxious Furby.
Since
Furby is useless, they leave above be the lookout while they explore the cave. However,
he apparently plunges to his death shortly thereafter. When examining his GoPro
camera, they inexplicably find hours of him whining about being abandoned
without food or water. Meanwhile, Prof. Hopper exits and re-enters after
finding his students gear outside. It soon becomes all too clear there are other
parties lost in the cave, above and beyond the wild west gunslinger Hopper
encounters in the alternate entrance.
Time Trap really proves how
much a professional grade cast can elevate what is essentially a half-baked
B-movie. There is a lot of scampering about caves and running from Neanderthals,
but the game ensemble largely convinces us this is a cosmically serious
situation. The screenplay (solely credited to Dennis) also manages to take the Interstellar-esque time warp Macguffin and
follow it to its most mind-bending logical extremes.
Rather
refreshingly, Brianne Howey, Reiley McClendon, and Cassidy Gifford all seem
reasonably together and down-to-earth as Jackie, Taylor, and Cara,
respectively. Frankly, the only character who causes serious acid reflux is the
cringe-inducing Furby, but Dennis & Foster axe him early in the second act.