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The Girl in the Crawlspace
USA 2018
produced by Henrique Couto for Midwest Film Venture
directed by John Oak Dalton
starring Erin R. Ryan, John Bradley Hambrick, Joni Durian, Tom Cherry, Jeff Rapkin, Joe Skeen, Chelsi Kern, Clifford Lowe, Jeff Kirkendall, Andrew N. Shearer, Rachael Redolfi, Jeff Shull, Katy Lynne Wolfe, Joe Kidd, Iabou Windimere
written by John Oak Dalton, music by Ray Mattis
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
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Psychiatrist Kristen (Joni Durian) and her scriptwriter husband Johnny
(John Bradley Hambrick) move from Hollywood back to the small town she
grew up in - because he, a recovering user, needs some distance between
himself and the drug-fueled Hollywood society, while she claims she wants
to help her community, but really also sees opportunity here since the
village has recently been haunted by the "Crawlspace Killer", a
psycho who abducted women and small boys who were never to be found again
- until one of the women, Jill (Erin R. Ryan) has managed to escape, and
the local sheriff, Woody (Tom Cherry), has killed the killer coming after
her. So now, Kristen is treating all the grieving parents to help them
cope with the loss (and eventually she hopes to write a book about it of
course), and soon even Jill shows up on her doorstep and gradually starts
to trust Kristen - yet in their sessions, she only talks about movies she
has seen, as she claims in the crawlspace she's been kept in there was a
TV and the killer has played her DVDs.
In the meantime, Johnny feels more and more irritated by country life,
and the fact that he's not using and wouldn't even know where to get drugs
doesn't make things easier. He actually wants to visit an AA meeting, but
instead stumbles into a Dungeons & Dragons like boardgame group
- and joins in, having nothing better to do anyways. Eventually he finds
out that Jill is a former member of the group and she considers joining
again - which forms an unexpected bond between them.
Kristen finds out the films Jill tells her about aren't actually real
at all, and she asks Johnny to try and find out if there's a hidden
message in her stories that might unlock her brain and shed some light on
the yet unexplained elements of the whole case. Reluctantly, Johnny
agrees, and against all odds he succeeds, too - and finds out the actual
Crawlspace Killer was not who everyone believed it to be - but he also
finds out that more likely than not the actual killer has abducted Kristen
...
Slowburn in approach, this is nevertheless a very tight piece
of genre cinema, a character-driven thriller that plays a bit like a
jigsaw puzzle where many pieces only get meaning much later in the
narrative to make this quite a fascinating watch. And putting an emphasis
on narration rather than spectacle and jump scares really works here to
keep the audience involved in the story, helped by a subtle directorial
effort that gives the characters room to develop. And of course, a solid
cast also helps to make this movie very worthwhile.
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