If you thought Mario Lopez was good for nothing but flexing his oiled muscles in the Bayside High locker room or introducing America to its next top dance crews, then you don't know Mario Lopez, sir. For instance, did you know Lopez was once the co-host of a television game show called Dating Factory? Or that from 2002 to 2004, for a total of 47 episodes, he single-handedly hosted something called Pet Star? It's true. And how can I forget his countless film roles, roles that include Felipe's Friend in the Dennis Hopper directed inner-city gang flick Colors, Dave Ruggles in the heart-wrenching Killing Mr. Griffin, and Clay Martin in something called Holiday in Handcuffs, which I can only imagine is a Christmas-themed S&M porn of some kind.
In the year 2000, Mr. Lopez received top billing in today's horror pick, A Crack in the Floor, a forgettable piece of trash that finds everybody's favorite all-city wrestler, quarterback, and all-around nice guy saying lines like the following, when responding to a story about a man losing his nose to frostbite:"At least when he's 69-ing a chick his nose won't get stuck in her pooper."
In the words of Principal Richard Belding, "Hey, hey, hey--what is going on here?!" That's not the Albert Clifford Slater we all grew up watching on Saturday mornings. That's some kind of a dirtball Anti-Slater talking that potty-talk. For shame! Screech, cover your ears!
In Crack, Lopez plays Lehman, a dirtball Anti-Slater, who goes on vacation with his equally sketchy friends, and ends up with a pick-ax in his spine. It's your basic "post-college co-ed friend group go on a hiking trip, find an abandoned cabin, smoke weed, get murdered by the hulking religious nutjob who lives in the basement" story, only this one has Gary Busey in a cameo role reciting lines that could have only sprung from his own unstable mind--lines about chicken wing suppositories and farts that smell like country-fried chicken (there's also something about molesting monkeys). It also stars heart-throb Jason Priestly's twin sister, Justine (Cyberteens in Love, Up Against Amanda), as the only character worth giving two shits about.
Perhaps one should view this cinematic abortion under the influence of an illegal narcotic. Now, hear me out. At the beginning of Crack, one of our hapless campers, Sunny, is checking out an interwebs site rife with graphic images of dead bodies while smoking large amounts of cannabis. She explains to her utterly disgusted boyfriend that while these images would be viewed by a non-smoker and quickly forgotten, the pot smoker would take the time to mull over the grisly images--or as she says "stop, look, and think"--become horrified by the troubles in this world and do something to change society as a whole. "Pot is the answer," she proclaims. And maybe it is. Maybe A Crack in the Floor reaches new heights of potential when viewed under the influence.
But I think I agree with her boyfriend, who in response says quite eloquently, "You know what the answer is? An answering machine is the answer. Pick up the phone!"
Pick up the phone, indeed.
