Time Trap is a sci-fi thriller about students who come looking for their professor in a cave, only to find that inside things are not the same as outside.
On the slopes of an isolated hillside in the desert, Professor Hopper’s (Andrew Wilson) dog senses something wrong as he comes upon a strange cave while searching for his parents, lost for years, their hippie van the only thing found. He decides to enter the cavern, seeing what looks like a gunslinger from the old west standing frozen in place. Turns out, the cavern is a rift in time and soon enough, the professor is gone as well, leading his top students and teaching assistants Troy (Reiley McClendon) and Jackie (Brianne Howey) to go looking, They bring along Cara (Cassidy Gifford), who has a sweet ride to get them into the desert, who in turn brings her younger sister Veevs (Olivia Draguicevich), who herself invites quirky pal Furby (Max Wright). Once inside the cave though, the group learns that they are not at all alone … or anywhere in the time when they started.
This is a very cool idea, made more so in its early moments when Hopper spends only a few seconds in the cave before running back out in fear, realizing that the world he left is now a few years in the future, his car overgrown by nature, and also, the car of his students, who he surmises came looking for him. This sends him back into the unknown and a dimension where all kinds of mayhem exist. This includes cowboys and Neanderthals along with a few other twists here and there that all come together in the far reaches of the cave’s deeper secrets.
However, this is not a big production and directors Mark Dennis (credited as the film’s writer) and Ben Foster don’t have a lot to work with, skipping around tonally as well, wedging in the misfit team of youngsters with a pry bar to appeal to a demographic that they eventually stop catering to, leaving this imbalanced in keeping it a light adventure and a darker-themed mindbender. Thankfully, most of the cast are up to the task and are at least scaled up above the microbudget trappings of the expected. The small set is mostly believable as well, a good use of space and lighting helping to give the eerie cave some presence.
There’s some intriguing ideas in the mix and developed enough to keep it interesting, even as the limitations of the production keep it a fairly slogish experience that lacks the wonder it seems ready to deliver. It certainly gains some ground in the third act, despite the filmmaker’s ambitions extending beyond their reach. The heart of this has some actual hooks involving the myth of the Fountain of Youth, yet is hampered a bit by the often static production. Never not compelling, Time Trap is a curious idea that isn’t entirely without some fun, die-hard lovers of independent sci-fi thrillers surely finding enough chomp in this to keep ’em satisfied.