Dir. Scott Schirmer (2016)
A man is kidnapped and forced to assimilate into a family that lives in the woods.
CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
To call this a good movie may be saying too much, but its certainly a well-made movie. The cinematography is fantastic, and for a movie with very few words the acting is pretty good as well. The story, almost an origin story for The Hills Have Eyes or something like it, leaves a little to be desired, but as slow as it often was it was compelling enough that I wanted to see how it ended. I guess you can’t say a whole lot more for a film than that it kept your attention. Plank Face is a bizarre tale, one that perhaps would have done better without the first twenty-or-so minutes, which add little to the story other than a little bit of nudity and bad acting. After the initial couple is offed, the acting gets way better, and lead actor Nathan Barrett actually does a great job with a mostly silent role.
The score to the film is relatively boring, a synth-driven banality providing a simple backdrop to the horror that you see on-screen. There’s very little gore, the torture inflicted hinted at more often than shown, though there are a couple of gory moments. The mask designs are kinda cool, a unique look for a backwoods cannibal family, but beyond that the movie has a difficult time deciding what it wants to be. It is a movie with flaws, to be sure, but it also has a really interesting concept and is put on-screen exceptionally well for what it is. If you like low budget, slow-burn indie horror, this one might be right up your alley.
