Trapped Alive

It's fair to say that a lot of dross was made in the 1980s and TRAPPED ALIVE (aka TRAPPED) is a good example of this. It's a cheesy, low budget piece of nonsense that attempts to combine the thriller and horror genres but does neither successfully. The plot is the most interesting thing in it but even that's mishandled, leaving this a near unwatchable viewing experience.

The film sat on the shelf for five years before release which gives you some idea of the quality. The story sees some violent criminals bust out of prison and take some young people hostage. The local police department are in hot pursuit, but all of the characters end up being trapped in an abandoned mine where they're pursued by a cannibalistic killer.

It's predictable stuff indeed and feels so slapdash that it's impossible to enjoy. The early scene-staging stuff is quite dull but when the action shifts to the mine things get really dark (visually) so you can't figure out what's happening. There's some gloopy gore here and a lot of bad acting from the cast, including Cameron Mitchell in one of his '80s-era anything-goes B-movies. The killer is a visual disappointment looking just like an old man and there's no bang here, just fizz.

The most frustrating thing about this film is that it had all the right pieces to be so much better. A creepy abandoned mine setting, a deformed cannibal hunting unsuspecting victims... but we end up with maybe five minutes of that promised premise at the most, with the film wasting 95% of its run time on multiple storylines of unrelated, unentertaining drama. It could have been up there as a classic, memorable slasher, had it done away with all the unnecessary filler in favour of bloody kills and more cannibal action, but unfortunately we're just left with a brief taste of what could have been in the end. The acting and production value are decent enough at least, but those things are wasted on a film as boring as this.

I give this film a 7 only as an enjoyably bad movie - so it gets that score for being cheesy and fun. To its credit, you never know what is going to happen next - it seems like five screenplays were thrown into a blender and they filmed that. Escaped prisoners, two innocent girls driving home late at night, abandoned mines, sleazy cops, cannibal miners, a little gore, ta-da! We laughed and enjoyed how bad it was. Everything you would want in a 80's horror/action movie. Veteran actor Cameron Mitchell (who was on Broadway in the original cast of Death Of A Salesman and then became an International B-movie actor) plays a worried father of one of the kidnapped girls but he's hardly in it. He must of had a mortgage payment due. Check out this bizarre cheesefest. You Will Be Trapped & Entertained!

I seem to have enjoyed Trapped Alive a tad more than most. Is it a work of art? Definitely not. Is it a groundbreaking horror that trucks convention? That'll be a big 'no'. But is it fun? Well, I thought so. It's cheesy, sleazy, and occasionally gory, with that unmistakable '80s vibe that makes even a bad movie entertaining.

Pretty teen Robin Adams (Sullivan Hester, in her one and only movie) leaves her father's Xmas get-together to drive to a more lively party with her pal Monica (Laura Kallison). On the way, the girls are stopped and taken hostage by three criminals on the run from a local penitentiary: Louis 'Face' Napoleon (Alex Kubik), Mongo (Michael Nash) and Randy 'Hotrod' Carter (Mark Witsken), who was forced to take part in the escape by his ruthless cellmates.

In order to avoid a roadblock, Randy steers the car down a country lane that leads to an old deserted mine. Driving over a disused shaft, the car plummets into the ground, where the survivors come face-to-face with a deranged cannibal. Investigating the area, Sheriff Billy Williams (Randy Powell) follows the criminals and their hostages into the mine but isn't prepared for the horrors that await.

This one was apparently shelved for five years before finally seeing the light of day (in 1993), but it isn't any worse than many similar films from that era, and definitely better than quite a few. The plot is routine and the dialogue predictable, but the cast put in decent performances given what they have to work with. Alex Kubik is particularly great as slimy child-killer Face, the actor hamming it up a treat at every opportunity. Kudos also to Elizabeth Kent as Rachel, the strange woman who lives in the old pay office above the mine: her show-stopping speech at the end of the film is an audacious exercise in over-acting that is a marvel to behold. At the other end of the scale, Cameron 'never one to turn down a gig' Mitchell sleepwalks through his role as Robin's father, the movie sporadically cutting to the concerned old man to justify the actor's star billing.

Mitchell's scenes aside, director Leszek Burzynski keeps the brace brisk, and whenever things threaten to drag, he throws in something trashy to keep the viewer entertained, whether it be a some gratuitous nudity (during a hilarious impromptu sex scene, and when Face forces Monica to strip for him), some gore (the discovery of the half-eaten remains of Mongo being the most grisly moment, made all the more revolting when Randy has to fish his torch out of the dead man's innards), or having his lead actress strip to her underwear to take an underwater swim (granny pants alert!).

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for crazy Rachel's mine-related sexy talk: "You go down.... down... until you find a shaft."

I first saw this in the late 90s on a vhs. Revisited it recently aft reading Ba_harrison's hilarious review. This movie is indeed unintentionally funny. The old geezer's/monster's white hair, the girl's out dated undergarments, the end speech and Mongo's face n guts. On a snowy Christmas nite, three convicts break outta prison n they carjack taking two women as hostages but things turn ugly when the car plummets down a mine shaft, trapping all the five fellas down. Well, like they say outta the frying pan into the fire. Unknown to em, an ol Alexander Pearce with snowy hair has been inhabiting the mine. The film lacks tension n the twist is very predictable. The kills r very few n nothing gory, except for the offscreen one. I thot that Mongo the Rubeus Hagrid lookalike will put up some fight man. Cameron Mitchell is totally wasted.