Crawlspace, Underground Horror from the Land Down Under

From Australia comes this very gory horror film, 2012's "Crawlspace."  After seeing this film, you'll never look at an electric rotating cranial saw the same way again.  For my female readers, enjoy Ditch Davey as an Aussie commando.  He will remind you of Jason Statham, with a slightly different accent.  We have mad-scientists, top secret government experiments, the Aussie version of Area 51, some mutant monsters, and dangerous women...perfect ingredients for this blog.  However ambitious the story line is, director Justin Dix never moves the plot far from a bloody horror story.

 An Aussie commando team is sent to a remote research facility to rescue scientists and destroy their creations.  Perfect.  They arrive at the subsurface lab to find torn up bodies everywhere.  The team also finds prisoners, which they execute.  Uh oh, Romeo (Davey), the commando chief finds a prisoner named Eve (Amber Clayton).  To Romeo's surprise, Eve is a spitting image of his dead fiance. When Eve begins to recall their trysts in France, Romeo is convinced she is the fiance.  But how?  As the team delves deeper into the facility, they are attacked by mutant monsters which are impervious to bullets.  The two other units, on different levels, are wiped out, and now only Romeo's men are left to complete the mission.

Weirdness is the order of the day as some of the commandos begin hallucinating, in a most fatal manner.  Romeo and the remnants of his team find the scientists, and the scientists implore him to kill Eve.  Romeo refuses, but it is apparent that Eve represents bloody danger to them.  With the mission just about complete, Romeo tries to lead the scientists and Eve to the surface.  Not so fast.  As the carnage continues, Eve seems to have two personalities.  The good Eve, and the alien monster Eve.  I know...don't even go there...what woman doesn't (this joke is not endorsed by Zisi)?  Romeo forces the head mad-scientist (Nicholas Bell) to fill him in.  Eve is a product of a brain graph between two telepathic beings...a woman and a......well, you'll see.  This lab is experimenting in telepathic warfare, and the experiments got out of hand and rebelled against their creators.  Still, how does this explain Eve?  Now faced with potential destruction from the evil scientists, mutant monsters, and a resurrected split-personality fiance, Romeo has his work cut out for him.

Is Eve really Romeo's dead fiance?  Exactly who, or what, was grafted with Eve's brain?  Do her emerging telepathic powers make her too dangerous to survive?  At times this film seems like a graft between "Scanners" (mind control, and exploding skulls), and "Alien" (monsters pursuing through ominous passageways).  With plenty of gore, explosions, gunfire, and out of control experiments, "Crawlspace" is a perfect film for a Friday night.  Available on Netflix, enjoy!