A Hard Place has the pieces to make a fun creature feature, but its pacing and poor characters can’t bring everything together.
J. Horton’s A Hard Place wears its potential on its sleeve. However, this creature feature can’t get out of the tight place it stumbles into. Its threadbare characters, uneven storytelling, and weird pacing take the wind out of its sails before the action begins. It’s a shame because the film could’ve been a fun monster mash.
Opening with a movie-within-a-movie set-up, A Hard Place gives a peek at the special effects work Robert Bravo crafted for the film before taking viewers to the main story. A group of criminals decide to hit up a drive-in for an easy score in the middle of nowhere. Of course, due to Candy (Jennifer Michelle Stone II) being a little too eager to shoot ‘em up, a simple robbery turns into murder, ramping up the need to get out of dodge.
Zenia (Lynn Lowry), the head of this criminal gang, directs them to an undetermined location deep within the countryside to await the next steps. Fish (Rachel Amanda Bryant), Candy, Candy’s partner/lowkey himbo Hurt (Kevin Caliber), and Zenia’s silent partner White (Scott Alan Ward) wander to the mysterious building that just screams, “This is not a suspicious location at all.” While they wander off, Zenia follows Fish’s brother, Steve (Steven Morris), as his bathroom buddy. Needless to say, nothing good ever happens when groups split up.
A (not so) motley crew.
Yet, what would generally be a device to weed out the herd ultimately does the opposite. More characters show up, with little to differentiate them from the general redneck tropeishness. There is a fun monologue moment dedicated to the horrors of spider monkeys that delights, but not much else. Instead, the characters are better distinguished by their designated groupings rather than as individuals. None are particularly noteworthy, except maybe the gun-happy Candy.
Despite the better efforts of its camera work and score, none of these elements can mask the drag in pacing after the first monster emerges. What should be a thrilling rush to safety flounders. By the time A Hard Place introduces the central conflict and its next setting, it’s been a long hour. More characters show up, including Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) as the matriarch taking centerstage and proving to be the most memorable by far. She has gravitas, even when the role lies deeply in its respective archetype.
Cool creatures.
Where the writing struggles and the characters pop up onscreen faster than bunny rabbits, the FX shines. The design of the plant monsters is a particular fave. How these mostly indistinguishable creatures move is a smart directing choice. It mirrors what we see in the movie-within-the movie in the opening scene, which also features a surprising amount of blood and viscera. When they show up later in A Hard Place, the were-creatures feature an eclectic array of facial work, with the leader having the most grotesque appearance.
The idea of humanoid plants and were-creatures duking it out should be fun. It almost is in the film’s climax. Yet the pacing is also an issue, as seen in a fight that drags on too long. What started as a fun, gleeful fighting sequence while the criminals await their unpleasant, spoiler-free fate, loses steam after a while. It takes an epic, explosive finish to smack some life back into things. Unfortunately, by then, it’s a little too late.
The bottom line.
A Hard Place looks like it was a blast to shoot. With its location choices, promise of action and intensity, and monsters, the film has some key ingredients to punch viewers in the face. Unfortunately, the ensemble of mostly one-note characters, length of scenes, and pacing issues interfering with the film’s tension-building make this would-be creature feature go out with a whimper rather than a roar.
A Hard Place is now available on Video On Demand. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of AHardPlaceMovie, LLC.
REVIEW RATING
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A Hard Place - 4/10
4/10
