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After seeing The Evil Dead Trap, I'm not surprised at all that it has a rather strong cult following; as despite the fact that the plot is rather ludicrous and the film isn't particularly well thought out, it makes up for these problems with a plethora of special effects and a bucket of gore; and the result is a brilliantly fun piece of Japanese horror. The influence for this film is clearly far reaching, but the most obvious is probably the Cronenberg masterpiece Videodrome, though the oeuvre of Lucio Fulci seems to be an influence and of course the English title is a clear rip-off of a very popular early eighties horror film. The plot focuses on a late night reality TV show hosted a young lady named Nami. The show receives a videotape that includes apparently real snuff tape footage. This leads the team to go and track down the origin of the tape, and they arrive at an old warehouse. After gaining access to the facility, it's not long before the group begin being picked off by an unseen assailant.

The film could easily be seen as a slasher flick, but actually it's much more ambitious than that. The snuff footage at the beginning of the film sets the tone for the rest of it; the violence is extreme, but also rather realistic and that is carried on throughout. One of my favourite things about it was undoubtedly the atmosphere; director Toshiharu Ikeda makes best use of the location and the fact that the central characters are isolated from the outside world. The violence is often shown and extreme and this is what makes the film entertaining. It's also rather inventive and the film offers much more than merely another man with a knife. The problems regarding the plotting and character are somewhat condemning; I do feel that if a bit more time and attention were given to these areas then the film could easily have been a masterpiece. But even so, if you want a good gorefest then you really can't do better than this film! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to all horror fans.

Sitting down and watching my newly bought EVIL DEAD TRAP DVD I was blown away at the scenes that unfolded before my eyes. This movie has gained a huge status over the years and now that it is available on DVD we won't need those crappy bootlegs anymore. I had heard much about the film's reputation and can say I was really impressed. The story is intelligent and well-thought out while the execution was played just perfectly. Evil Dead Trap contains an especially delicious array of gory delights including sliced hands, gouged eyeball torture, impalement by spear contraption, cranium cracking, and neck breaking. This is quite the twisted film and this is ONLY the beginning! The first half is your basic stalk-n-slash story (Japanese style) with one freaky looking killer dressed in a black raincoat. Later, the movie progresses into something a bit more complex, some would say silly, but I enjoyed the move the film made. Let's just say it's something you wouldn't have seen coming. I loved the final showdown between Nami, and...wait I won't tell you, but in my opinion it's one of the best scenes in horror history. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. After all, like most have already said, the director takes a strong influence from veteran Italian horror-meisters like Argento and Fulci and even has some Evil Dead-like camera angles thrown in there. You could even say there's a bit of Cronenberg's genius in here as well ;-) How can you go wrong?

This cult favorite B horror flick from Japan stars Miyuki Ono as Nami, the host of a late night TV program. One day, she receives in the mail a tape that contains footage of what appears to be an honest-to-God snuff film. Repulsed but fascinated, Nami assembles a camera crew (mostly female) and heads for the deserted factory where it is believed the footage was shot. Soon, Nami and company are subjected to repeated terrors, for there is indeed a killer on the premises.

At first, the set-up and the story (by Takashi Ishii) would seem to be on the routine side, but director Toshiharu Ikeda handles all of it in style, and delivers tons of potent doom-and-gloom atmosphere. The production design is truly first-rate, the gore by Shin'ichi Wakasa is first-rate ("Evil Dead Trap" can boast two great murder set pieces), the music (reminiscent of the Goblin score for "Suspiria", just one thing that "Evil Dead Trap" references) is good, and the performances (by a cast of Japanese porn stars) are capable. What elevates "Evil Dead Trap" is the big reveal at around the 82 minute mark, and the entire final act. It truly places poor Nami - who is put through the wringer over and over - into a vision of Hell. What's more, the disturbed antagonist is one that the audience can feel some pity for, as they just want their untenable situation to end.

Generally good fun, this does tend to be slowly paced, and a viewer could also see it as being repetitive, but it really does deliver a fair bit of genuine horror before those end credits start rolling. The splatter-riffic ending is truly one that is worth the wait.

Followed by two sequels.

Seven out of 10.

Take a dash of atmospheric horror, add a huge helping of giallo, an equal amount of slasher films and a sprinkle of sci-fi horror. Filter through Dario Argento's 'Suspiria'-like soundtrack and use of primary colors and Shi'nya Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo: Iron Man's frenetic black and white images and industrial soundtrack and you've got Evil Dead Trap. Throw in a pinch of B-movie horror ala Frank Henenlotter and Alain Roback to spice things up further. The English translation is top-notch and over all the movie is easy to follow. The lead actress comes across well and the deaths are inventive for the most part. The gore is fairly graphic, with squirting blood foreshadowing the Tokyo Shock films to come almost two decades later. Sure, it's not Oscar material, but cinephiles will enjoy picking out the various influences and the average viewer will get an over-the-top cult film. My only bone with the film is that the director didn't have to use EVERY influence, perhaps picking one or two themes only, but I guess that's one of the things that makes it over-the-top.

Sure, the soundtrack borrows from Goblin, the ending is pretty nonsensical, and there ain't much plot, but it's definitely one of the best slashers I've seen. There's a lot of good camera work, plus some of the goriest, most brutal kill scenes ever. The eyeball bit makes me squirm every time. The film takes a turn for the worse at the end when a supernatural element is introduced, but I just laugh.

Gorehounds will appreciate the bloody kills, but this is purely an exercise in style over substance. Enjoyable cult movie if you're in the right frame of mind...

You can save yourself at least an hour by turning this movie off (or walking out of a showing) after the first 35 minutes or so. You will have seen the interesting and scary parts by then and it will only take me a few lines to tell you how it ends.

I expected much more from this movie based on the buzz and other reviews. I actually had to turn the movie off because I kept falling asleep after the first half of the movie. In this respect, it reminded me of "God Told Me To". Both movies lose all their steam very quickly and rapidly devolve into confused messes of disparate ideas. Coherency goes out the window, along with any interest you might have in the outcome, and you find that you really don't care what happens. The end of the movie is so clichéd and hackneyed that you will probably think that Ikeda simply walked off the set, turning it over to his third assistant.

This is truly a shame, too, as the first half of the movie shows so much promise. It just goes to show that a single good idea does not carry a film in the absence of a plot.

Very very minor spoiler.

Plot summary: A TV crew get lured to a disused military installation and get stalked by….a killer.

After being introduced to Ikeda-san's work by his abysmal 2001 effort "Shadow of the Wraith" I had zero expectations for this, especially after I found out he also directed one of the later Meiko Kaji-less instalments of the "Female Prisoner Scorpion" series.

How surprised I was then, to see just what a solid film "Evil Dead Trap" is. The film certainly doesn't mess around; introducing the characters and setting up the plot in about fifteen minutes, all perfectly spliced around a videotaped Fulci-esquire eye slicing scene. The plot, initially owing much to Videodrome, takes a back seat as the TV crew get down to the business of walking backwards, running further into darkened warehouses when they should be going outside and having sex when they should be watching out for the psychopathic knife-wielder.

The ripped off plot and horror clichés aside, the film scores its points with an array of violent, gruesome and inventive deaths, with an abundance of blood, nudity and maggots. Whenever I thought the film was regressing into conventionality, it always surprised me by turning back on itself, usually with an aforementioned brutal killing. However the ending was what most shocked me; what seemed to be a conventional explanation for the "mystery" of the killer eventually culminated in a horrific gorefest that probably got David Cronenberg wondering if he'd misplaced a script.

This is mainstream 80s J-horror at its best, taking influence from the greats such as Cronenberg and Fulci. It makes up for its shortcomings with a shocking amount of violence and gore, the occasional graphic sex scene and a brilliant conclusion.

A must for all gorehounds and horror fanatics.

As TV reporter Nami investigates the site of what might be an actual snuff movie, she is plunged into a literal waking nightmare of pervasive darkness, flickering light and sudden, inexplicable violence. Shot in bled-out color with such high contrast shadows as to create almost a black and white movie, this highly influential horror flick showcases a Freddy Krueger-like psychic serial killer who knocks off Nami's co-workers in increasingly logic-defying fashion. The low budget is well used to create genuine scares as Nami and her crew plumb the dark depths of a crumbling abandoned military facility full of jagged metal, unstable walls and other less mundane hazards. Be warned that the scares here are not subtle - this one is for gore-hounds.

I wasn't a huge fan of this one, but then I don't really like gore flicks or style-over-substance, albeit with some exceptions. This one's a derivative little story that starts off with a snuff plot before moving into EVIL DEAD territory, with a bunch of characters in an abandoned factory tortured and killed by a mystery killer. It's certainly gory, featuring lots of bloody nastiness and an eyeball scene that outdoes the one in ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS, but around the halfway mark I started to find it more than a little tiresome and can't say I enjoyed it all that much.

I am using this quotation to refer to overzealous critical opinion. The film itself suffered a budget cutback in the sound and fury department.

I had the misfortune to live through this with a friend at the Fant-Asia Festival in Toronto in August. I was laughing by the end as the film just got stupider and stupider without ever really passing through a scarier and scarier phase. The finale is a riot of derisive laffs.

The film's stylishness -- what there is of it -- is all stolen. The soundtrack is ripped off from one or more of Goblin's old scores for Dario Argento. Teller of Penn & Teller said on the box the other day (in a special about magic) that imitation is *not* the highest form of flattery. It's just theft. Teller rarely speaks, but when he does he's right.

The film *is* gross; I'll give you that. Personally, the infrequent carnal delights were really the only thing I found in its favour.

I gave this film a bad rating at that time; I in fact had to create this IMDb page first, plus 4 other Ikeda pages. Back in August, there was only one Ikeda page: Kagi. But I didn't bother to review the film since, hey, who's ever going to see it? But now it's popped up in an ad in Asian Cult Cinema, so now I have to warn the WORLD. Just like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I do feel some qualms since ACC is backing it -- I would award the magazine a high rating if given the opportunity.

I have had an unusually high opinion of Oliver Stone for a long time. I'm in a minority, so what. I like him not for his commercial instincts, or for his disregard for historical accuracy, but rather for his willingness to take on challenging topics in mainstream films. But I don't know what to think since seeing his high praise for this film. Perhaps his comments were taken out of context. Or perhaps there's a kernel of truth in those scurrilous exposés.

SPOILERS

Nami Tsuchiya is an ambitious young reporter who hosts a late night public access show. One day she returns to her office to find a mysterious tape sitting on her desk. She watches it only to see the directions to an abandoned factory where someone kills a young woman. Nami recruits several friends to go to the factory in effort to finally get the news story she's been needing to become famous. Once they arrive at the factory someone, or something, systematically picks off all of Nami's friends without mercy in a game of cat and mouse. Nami then meets a mysterious stranger that claims to be looking for his brother and knows the way out of the maze-like factory.

The first half of this film is outstanding. The gore is great, the plot is great and the pacing is great, but then after all of Nami's friends are killed and she meets the stranger the pacing just sort of dies up until the climax. It goes from being one of the best horror movies I've ever seen into a film that becomes, well, boring. There are several long sequences, of like three or four consecutive minutes, where we just have Nami walking around in a field sulking over her dead friends. I rarely say this, but The Evil Dead Trap would have really benefited by cutting about ten minutes off the runtime. Then it picks back up at the end for a rather twisted ending very reminiscent of the work of Larry Cohen, in sort of a mix between It's Alive and God Told Me To.

As I mentioned, the gore in this film is excellent. The opening murder scene features an example of eyeball violence and brutal close-ups that rival even the best of Fulci. As soon as the television crew arrives to the factory you get the feeling of a great 1980s slasher film, containing both spine chilling suspense and good gore once the killer makes his move.

Overall this was a great film surrounded by a decent amount of material that didn't need to be there. Had the pacing of the whole film been what it was in the first half then this would go down among my all time favorites, however it gets too dull and pointless to earn that honor. Instead, in my opinion it goes down as a good slasher film that I am glad I purchased but didn't live up to my expectations.

MY GRADE: B

"Evil Dead Trap" is a notorious Japanese horror film known for its heavy violence. It's a uniquely grisly Eastern take on the slasher flick, with an ending that abandons that for Cronenberg-like body horror.

Nami is a struggling reporter who gets a supposed "snuff film" in the mail. It features perhaps the most horrific eye-gouge I have ever seen in a movie. Fulci's "Zombi" has nothing on it.

Nami, being apparently not very bright, decides to gather her equally foolish team of helpers and check out the abandoned warehouse where the 'murder' was apparently filmed. There, in time-honored slasher film style, they decide to "split up and check it out", whereupon, yes, they begin getting picked off one by one, apparently by a masked assailant, though most of the deaths involve traps set beforehand.

There are then some tedious, lengthy dialogue scenes and I admit I stopped really paying attention. None of the violence in the movie tops or even equals that opening eye-pop scene, and the movie takes a truly bizarre detour into the realm of body horror which made no sense to me.

It left me wondering: is the bog standard slasher just too simplistic and dull for Japanese audiences? Is that why they felt they had to tack on the garbage at the end? What you end up with is a passable slasher which moves too late into weirdness and just loses the audience completely.

Toshiharu Ikeda's "Evil Dead Trap" was really popular in Japan,spawning at least two sequels.Nami(Miyuki Ono),a late night TV show host,receives a strange tape.It shows the brutal murder of a young Japanese woman.Nami launches her own investigation,taking four of her crew to an abandoned Army base.However somebody,or possibly something is waiting for them..."Evil Dead Trap" is obviously influenced by the works of Dario Argento,Lucio Fulci,Sam Raimi and David Cronenberg.It has even Goblinesque soundtrack which reminds me Argento's "Suspiria".Still the film has some wonderful surprises-it's atmospheric and very gory.The death scenes are pretty graphic and gruesome,so gorehounds won't be disappointed.I really liked the use of booby traps to kill some of the victims.The ending is also very surprising.All in all I enjoyed this film and you should too,if you're a fan of Japanese extreme horror!

This started out interestingly enough, but man did it run way to long after most of the characters had already been slain. Still it was rather good here and there, though I am not sure why the English title for this was Evil Dead Trap cause really there are no zombies or anything like that. The trap part of the title is appropriate cause the whole premise of the movie is sort of a trap. A trap to ensnare a reporter and her colleagues by luring them in with a tape showing the directions to an old abandoned military base and a brutal murder of a woman. The group heads out to the factory and does the exploring thing and then they begin to get killed in very unpleasant ways...killed very quickly I might add as we are left with only one of the group left and a mysterious man. I had no problem figuring out the secret, but that is because the stupid inside of the DVD had a picture that pretty much ruined the one revelation and helped you figure out the other quickly too. So in the end you are left with one of the longest confrontation scenes ever in a horror movie that isn't all that exciting to watch. It just went on and on, then death, then attack, another apparent death and attack till they finish off with a rather gory ending which is okay, but nothing I haven't seen before in a Lucio Fulcio movie. Still though it has some upside to keep you entertained a bit...I just would have preferred a bit more explanation on some points and less in other areas.

Envelope-pushing shock horror boasts a lot of energy at first, but ultimately burns itself out into repetitive gore effects and nonsensical plotting, to say nothing of utterly pointless and offensive rape sequences. This is a shame, because it's impressively filmed, if openly derivative, most of the time, and generates a genuine sense of claustrophobia along with isolated effective visuals. However, once the routine massacre of the supporting cast, with the aid of disturbing Sadean devices in the nooks and crannies of an eerily filmed deserted compound, is accomplished, fairly early on, the film then degenerates into monotonous chase scenes and cringing from lead actress Miyuki Ono, before finally lapsing into frenetic and stultifying camera movement and dreary clichés. It's easy to see why this film would be so popular, but it's ultimately a rather dubious venture.

This is a decent film that does suffer from some fairly serious problems. As other posters have mentioned time and time again, the ending is pretty pointless and seems like it was tagged on just to pad the movie out a little bit.

The biggest problem, however, is the complete lack of plot development. There seems to be an interesting story buried in here somewhere, but it never quite sees the light of day. Why, for instance, is the killer compelled by his "brother" to lure individuals to the factory and kill them? It's obvious that heroine acts as a mother figure, but why and to what end? This movie will leave you with a lot of unanswered questions. Here's the breakdown: Gore: Yup, lots of it here. This might be a seeing point in and of itself if you like makeup effects.

Nudity: A little bit. There is a particularly disturbing rape scene involving a character whose presence is never really explained. Who is he and what the hell was he doing there? Plot: Full of holes and pretty much stalls out after the first 20 or so minutes. Is there something supernatural happening here? Who knows.

Scary bits: There's a pretty good atmosphere, but it really dosen't deliver in the horror department. It won't make you jump, but it might make you a little sick.

Acting: Better than anything you'll find in a North American equivalent.

Check this out if you can rent it or download it. Certainly not worth owning unless you've already checked it out and are sure about adding it to your collection. In the nearly 2 decades since it was made, there have been plenty of other Japanese horror movies that score high above this film. I only gave it a seven out of ten, rather than a six, because the gore level was so high. This does, however, score well above other films made during the same period.

Bottom line: Real potential, but lacking a solid plot or direction.

EVIL DEAD TRAP (Shiryo no Wana)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Mono

An intrepid news team traces an apparent 'snuff' movie back to an abandoned factory where they are stalked and killed by something whose origins are never adequately explained. Is it an alien? A supernatural entity? A combination of both? Who knows! Who cares! Horror fans have been extolling the virtues of Toshiharu Ikeda's EVIL DEAD TRAP for years, praising its technical virtuosity and scenes of horrific violence (the film opens with an uncomfortably realistic eye-gouging which gives a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI 2 a run for its money). But, in truth, this is no better or worse than countless American horror movies which have paused in theaters only briefly before slinking away, unwanted and unloved, to die a well-deserved death amongst all the other faceless rubbish that's clogging up the world's video shelves. True, EVIL DEAD TRAP is distinguished by some fairly outlandish set-pieces, most of which have been inspired by similar material in the films of Argento, Raimi, et al, but the plot is paper thin and the narrative is largely comprised of characters wandering around in dark places. The sex scenes are blatantly gratuitous (including an extended rape which long outstays its welcome), while the violence is staged with an energy that's sadly lacking everywhere else. Only the quality of its technical execution prevents the film from sliding into the realms of worthless junk.

(Japanese dialogue)