TIME TRAP: A Film Lost in Its Own Time Warp

Time Trap is a sci-fi/fantasy written, directed and produced by Mark Dennis and Ben Foster. What started out as an interesting concept turns into a jumbled mess of its own doing.

Mysterious Disappearances

Professor Hopper (Andrew Wilson) is an archaeologist obsessed with finding out what happened to his family when they disappeared after descending in a cave looking for the Fountain of Youth in the 1970’s. When the film starts he has found his parent’s old camper – which just happens to be there undisturbed after all this time – and notices a cave far in the distance. Upon arrival at the cave, he sees what looks like a cowboy inside, seemingly frozen in time. Shocked with what he sees, he turns back.

He had apparently set up this exploration trip with his teaching assistants Taylor (Reiley McClendon) and Jackie (Brianne Howey) but returns home to where they are awaiting, telling them he’s going on his own. Two days later, Taylor and Jackie set it upon themselves to go and find the Professor, when they haven’t received any word back from him.

Because they don’t have their own SUV, they finagle a girl Taylor likes, Cara (Cassidy Gifford) into borrowing her dad’s SUV. Apparently, Cara’s 13-year-old sister Veeves (Olivia Draguicevich) has some school project to do, so Cara decides to take her as well. Then they also pick up another young friend Furby (Max Wright) to take along as well, cause, you know, it’s always good to take children on a potentially life-threatening cave expedition.

The script is already riddled with holes in its setup alone, filled with too many “just because” reasonings and easy fixes to obstacles for the characters. By just this point I had in an inordinate amount of questions, but hang on to your hat because it only gets worse from here.

The Cave of No Logic

First off, I’m not a scientist. I don’t have all of the answers on time logic, nor do I claim to. I am a Sci-Fi/Fantasy writer, so I generally love to hear new concepts from other artists and I was all set to hear a fun new twist in this film. I’m also one who is able to suspend my disbelief for the sake of fun, but this story clearly didn’t know where it was headed to begin with.

The kids find Hopper’s parents van and follow their old rope into a different part of the cave. The group descends into the cave, leaving Furby, a 13-year-old, to keep watch. They unknowingly go through an invisible portal as they descend, and all end up in the same place. Yet when Hopper comes back out of his cave in the “future”, he goes and re-enters the same cave entrance as the kids and there’s a different portal the kids somehow never went through before their descent, which takes him to a different part of the cave.

As the kids begin to explore, they realize, through clips of found footage from Furby’s camera and Cara’s ascent through a different hole to the above, that time outside the cave is zooming ahead while they and everything else down there are stuck in a slower, alternate timeline. As the story lingers on from one mess to another, the logic gets more and more skewed and looks as if the writers were just making stuff up to move the story rather than attempting to help the characters out of their situation. There is no true resolution, nor is any part of the story ever fully, logistically tied together.

Don’t Worry, Everything’s All White

In addition to the woefully laid out script, are the film’s antagonists. Labeled on IMDB as “Guardians”, which I assume is meant to be guardians of the cave or Fountain of Youth, are these cavemen like people who harass and kill every new visitor they can find. The entirety of the “good guy” cast is made up of white people, while all of the simplistic, ignorant, murdering cave dwellers are seemingly people of color. If the Hallmark Channel made Sci-Fi, this film would be in their line up.

Again we see, in a film made in 2017, the same white heroism we’ve seen since the dawn of film. It is the people of color who are depicting simple, brutal people, intent on making life hard for the white characters. It is only in overcoming these characters of color, that the white people bring or receive redemption. When people of privilege are the ones who get to write and direct most all of the films and are privy to the highest amount of distribution, this is what we see. Why would a white male care to be inclusive if they don’t have to be? It’s very easy for them to remain blind to the world around them when they are the most served.

Not to mention that many of Hollywood’s green-lighters are white males, who simply opt not to take on or fund projects from people of color, but that’s a whole other article. There was no logical reason that at least half if not more of the “good guys” couldn’t have been people of color. In a day and age where representation matters, across the board, this choice is simply lazy and privileged negligence. It’s almost 2019 already folks, why are we STILL dealing with the same racist, sexist crap they dealt with in 1950? Filmmakers, distributors, producers, WAKE UP. Get with the progression train or get left behind.

Time Trap: Conclusion

This film fails itself in a myriad of ways. First, by creating a script with no clear direction. When working with time travel a writer must be as meticulous as humanly possible. What started with a very cool concept trailer, ended up tripping over itself time and time again. There are too many stories happening in one film. We jump from a professor and a couple of students exploring a tunnel; to a search for the fountain of youth; to a way-out space story involving aliens with no indication of why. Where were the filmmakers going with this?

There wasn’t a clear protagonist and antagonist, so it turned itself into a mundane Sunday afternoon Disney Channel/SYFY network teen group drama. None of them learned any real lesson, because there wasn’t one set out to learn to begin with. The characters didn’t have any serious flaws to get over except their own self-absorbed, lack of thought to consequences whatsoever. The timelines simply don’t add up for a movie about time warps, and there is overt racism hearkening back to the films and television shows from the 1960’s or earlier.

When is Hollywood actually going to care more about quality than quantity? The business is set up for, supposedly, the most elite, so why aren’t they also putting that same scrutiny on the films they make? I’ve also heard the excuse “Well they can’t all be great”. Oh yes, they can. If a script doesn’t meet the bar, get rid of it. It’s that simple. There are certainly enough scripts and talented writers out there to always champion the best. It doesn’t matter if a certain genre isn’t your cup of tea, they can still be done well for that genre. Our best is what moviegoers and the world deserve.

Wouldn’t you love to see something great every time you watch a film? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Time Trap is coming to select theaters in the U.S. November 2, 2018 and digital/On Demand release November 13, 2018.