Dead Trap aka Shiryo no wana (1988) Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda Credited cast: Miyuki Ono and others
Evil Dead Trap is a film that I knew was going to be brutal and therefore kept on the shelf until the missus was sufficiently lulled into a false sense of drunken security before I bunged it onto the DVD player, only to be faced by the image of a crocodile eating a pigeon. Thanks! Good way to start a film. I suppose in the end it was Japanese though.
Said biased battle betwixt crocodile and pigeon appears on a Japanese TV show presented by Namu (I think), who like to get her viewers to send videos in. One video turns up addressed to her and those 'who stay awake' or something like that. This one features a Japanese woman who is tied up and being tortured, who subsequently has an eyeball pierced very graphically and gets stabbed up all bloody. This intrigues Namu and instead of going to the cops she gets her loyal crew of expendable cast members together and heads out to the place on the video (the killer kind of gives her directions at the beginning of his film) under the assumption that this is just a fake snuff movie, or something to that effect. It's stupid anyway, and not the last stupid thing to happen in this film, because the moment they get there everyone splits up.
Namu heads off on her own and meets a mysterious fella who warns her away and says nothing more. Another couple start going at it hammer and tongs like they do in this kind of film, and the other two do something else. Predictably the female half of the post-coital couple gets wasted by myriad floor piercing blades in a rather cool, if stupid scene.
Whoever made this film is certainly up on their Italian horror - we have eye piercings, maggots, and a theme tune stolen from City of the Living Dead. The scenes are laid out Argento style and the gore and cheese are plentiful. For all its stupidity Evil Dead Trap wins out for its ending and its style. There are some very well executed scenes using flash photography, multiple TV monitors, traps (stick it up yer rectum SAW!) and in the end, utterly mental plot twists. I forgave the film for all its clichés and rip offs (plenty of girls running/falling/crawling...people walking backwards in the dark, and the surviving chick managing to escape and THEN HEADING BACK INTO the abandoned base thingy)...all these faults threaten to make you want to smash the TV in, but the look of the film, and some of the lovely set pieces make you forgive it (didn't need the rape scene though). If that doesn't sway you - the last, mind boggling fifteen minutes should.
READ ON - BUT THERE ARE SPOILERS AHOY!
Just when you think that the killer has been dispatched (and you are expecting him to get back up), his symbiotic twin brother, who up until that point existed only as a psychological construct, burst in a very gory organic form from the killer's chest and proceeds to attack the surviving girl. If this twist wasn't enough, the killer gets back up and stuffs his twin back into his chest, only to be burned alive, get up again, and finally fall out a window to shatter into tiny pieces. And if that ain't enough - the surviving girl gives birth to the twin at the end of the movie. Utter, entertaining brain damage.
Very very stupid though. Not much makes sense, so I'd avoid looking at the plot AT ALL. Seriously. Even thirty minutes in I was scratching my head. As with the best of trash - just send your brain to the shops and enjoy the ride. This film isn't the classic I've seen it made out to be, but it's certainly one for the collection. See it now.
Then scratch your head.
Evil Dead Trap is a film that I knew was going to be brutal and therefore kept on the shelf until the missus was sufficiently lulled into a false sense of drunken security before I bunged it onto the DVD player, only to be faced by the image of a crocodile eating a pigeon. Thanks! Good way to start a film. I suppose in the end it was Japanese though.
Said biased battle betwixt crocodile and pigeon appears on a Japanese TV show presented by Namu (I think), who like to get her viewers to send videos in. One video turns up addressed to her and those 'who stay awake' or something like that. This one features a Japanese woman who is tied up and being tortured, who subsequently has an eyeball pierced very graphically and gets stabbed up all bloody. This intrigues Namu and instead of going to the cops she gets her loyal crew of expendable cast members together and heads out to the place on the video (the killer kind of gives her directions at the beginning of his film) under the assumption that this is just a fake snuff movie, or something to that effect. It's stupid anyway, and not the last stupid thing to happen in this film, because the moment they get there everyone splits up.
Namu heads off on her own and meets a mysterious fella who warns her away and says nothing more. Another couple start going at it hammer and tongs like they do in this kind of film, and the other two do something else. Predictably the female half of the post-coital couple gets wasted by myriad floor piercing blades in a rather cool, if stupid scene.
Whoever made this film is certainly up on their Italian horror - we have eye piercings, maggots, and a theme tune stolen from City of the Living Dead. The scenes are laid out Argento style and the gore and cheese are plentiful. For all its stupidity Evil Dead Trap wins out for its ending and its style. There are some very well executed scenes using flash photography, multiple TV monitors, traps (stick it up yer rectum SAW!) and in the end, utterly mental plot twists. I forgave the film for all its clichés and rip offs (plenty of girls running/falling/crawling...people walking backwards in the dark, and the surviving chick managing to escape and THEN HEADING BACK INTO the abandoned base thingy)...all these faults threaten to make you want to smash the TV in, but the look of the film, and some of the lovely set pieces make you forgive it (didn't need the rape scene though). If that doesn't sway you - the last, mind boggling fifteen minutes should.
READ ON - BUT THERE ARE SPOILERS AHOY!
Just when you think that the killer has been dispatched (and you are expecting him to get back up), his symbiotic twin brother, who up until that point existed only as a psychological construct, burst in a very gory organic form from the killer's chest and proceeds to attack the surviving girl. If this twist wasn't enough, the killer gets back up and stuffs his twin back into his chest, only to be burned alive, get up again, and finally fall out a window to shatter into tiny pieces. And if that ain't enough - the surviving girl gives birth to the twin at the end of the movie. Utter, entertaining brain damage.
Very very stupid though. Not much makes sense, so I'd avoid looking at the plot AT ALL. Seriously. Even thirty minutes in I was scratching my head. As with the best of trash - just send your brain to the shops and enjoy the ride. This film isn't the classic I've seen it made out to be, but it's certainly one for the collection. See it now.
Then scratch your head.