A Hard Place
A B-movie horror flick, A Hard Place gives us a group armed robbers (most notably Rachel Amanda Bryant, Kevin Caliber, and Jennifer Michelle Stone II) who end up in the desolate wilderness after a job stuck in the middle of a war between two neighboring redneck families of monsters. On one side there are the plant-based "Guardians" who roam the woods during the day and on the other are the more vampiric zombies who turn during the full moon. The arrival of the fresh meat also coincides with a solar eclipse which will bring both sets of monsters into battle at full strength.
The film from writer/director J. Horton and co-writer Michael J. Epstein plays into the cheap horror trappings of indie horror with lots of weird monster attacks and gore. Intercut throughout the film, attempting to interject some comedy into an otherwise mostly humorless script, are a drive-in horror movie about zombies (first shown during the heist but never directly acknowledged) and the weird sex education film the family shows their new "breeders."
Like most horror films, there's not an abundance of plot other than sequences set up for bad decisions and monster attacks. A Hard Place also lacks a distinct visual style (other than the weird design of the monsters) to frame, and cover up the limitations to, the story. While the film eventually explains the feud between the two monsters, we never get a proper explanation on how either of these groups came to be. The film does tease romantic interest between the least-murdery robber and one of the local women (Ashley Undercuffler), but, like the suitcase of loot retrieved in the opening scene, it's more of a tease of what might be rather than something the film has any interest in fully exploring.
Watch the trailer- Title: A Hard Place
- IMDb: link
