Evil Dead Trap 2

The crew who made this film of a murderous love triangle set in a wasteland of urban Japanese anomie (revolving around an overweight movie projectionist, her spiffy TV- correspondent friend, and the man they both share, more or less) needed to decide what the heck was happening here before they went ahead into production. Sure, maybe the result would have been no less weirded out and non-linear than the mishmash fema-slasher-post-abortion-psycho-angst-fest they ended up with--but they would have made conscious decisions about how the weirdness did or did not fit together as a plot. Deliberately chosen incoherence might have jelled into a more compelling and less aimless flick. Personally, I enjoyed the film's unconventional post-Bergman moodiness: but the evident lack of storyboarded logic emphasizes budget and production shorftalls, dragging down the project.

I gotta praise the atmosphere of this film, it's a totally unnerving experience... though it doesn't make a whole lotta sense (I watch a lot of Lucio Fulci, so I'm used to that), the gruesome nature of the film is enough to make those who aren't used to it sick to the stomach... but that's sort of the point.

6/10

For those that aren't aware, this film is not a sequel to the original Evil Dead Trap... I'm guessing the producers saw the final cut, were perplexed and decided to use the success of "Evil Dead Trap" to sell the film to distributors more easily (and perhaps to sell the audience the misleading idea of a sequel)...

It tries to tie into "Evil Dead Trap" by using a creepy child, who seems more like a ghost, appear from time to time and is named "Hideki" (an obvious nod to Evil Dead Trap) and seems to be able to possess the 3 main characters at different times in the film... at least that seems to be the case

It tries hard (and almost succeeds) to be one of those films that constantly hold you in a state of "shock and disgust" (films that succeed at this are: Andrzej Zulawski's "Possession", and Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs" (unrated of course))... however, the non-gore scenes which make up a large part of the film don't hold the viewer in that rare state of "glued to the screen watching something truly abhorrent and riveting"... and it's truly confusing at times.

Gore hounds of Fulci and others like him will find a lot to like in "Hideki"... but not for "beginners" in horror... and especially, not for the faint of heart.

I purchased this film on DVD in all it's Unrated, Uncut gory glory, expecting something special, expecting a quality horror film, something like the many other great films to come from Japan, China or Korea etc. The fact that the writer of 'Akira' was the director also caught my interest. But a 'Ring','Dark Water','Tale of Two Sisters' this ain't! First of all, the film is low-budget. Very low-budget! But that's not bad, low-budget films can be great. But the story seemed slim. The first half of the film was alright though, it kept me watching, wondering and wanting to know how the characters develop. I especially liked some of the odd performances from the varied cast members.

The scenes of gore throughout the film were a little disturbing and quite weird, this is definitely not mainstream horror. The violent scenes were surprisingly not that many though, until the end that is, but when they happen, they are bloody! Very Bloody!! The last act of the film I thought was utter madness. I kind of lost what was happening, it all just went kinda mad...and went on and on and on...and I was glad when it was over. It made no sense and was just plain NOT VERY GOOD.

Overall I would not recommend this film to anyone, not even Asian horror fans, except maybe the hardcore, but that is only my opinion. I just didn't think it was that good. Gory horror can be fun, but without a good enough story and script it can be terrible. Their was a theme to it though, but I won't go into detail as it might spoil it for you. If I had listened to others opinions I would not have watched it, but I did, because you have to know for yourself, don't you.

Sequel in name only to the Japanese torture/splatter pic Evil Dead Trap (1988) (so, again, not in any way connected with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies). Like the first, this plays out like a combination of slasher, giallo, and body-horror.

Aki works as a theatre projectionist. She's overweight, not 'conventionally attractive', suffers from low self-esteem, and pretty much withdraws from the world when she's not working. Her only friend is Emi; she's an attractive former pop idol, now working as a TV news reporter. Emi has been covering a series of brutal ripper-style murders of young women. Our sympathies for Aki fade when she suddenly realises that she herself is the killer; some evenings she dresses fashionably - even seductively, and stalks and kills young women, mutilating then in a manner similar to Jack the Ripper. That's all I can say with any certainty, because from then on it's by no means clear how much - if any - of what we see is real... Aki is encouraged by Emi to get out more, and they get into a bizarre love-triangle with Emi's (married) supervisor. Emi gets sexually aroused by the sight of the women's mutilated bodies as she arrives at crime scenes. Aki is haunted by the ghost of a young boy (kind of a forerunner of 'Toshio' from the Ju-On movies), and that same little boy also appears to Emi's supervisor and his wife as the spirit of a child they longed for but never had (???). Gradually, jealousies and rivalries begin to alter Aki and Emi's relationship, leading to an even more bizarre - and incredibly bloody - turn of events.

The movie has been called 'hallucinatory', which is a perfect description. What's certain is that the cinematography is terrific, the performances are all very good, the effects are excellent, and the blood and gore rivals that of the Terrifier movies. Like the first one, visually and musically it's got a very Argento feel to it, with a bit of Cronenberg thrown in. There are two big drawbacks. One is that the whole thing is just so damn confusing; it's hard to get invested in what's happening to the characters when you don't know how much of it is 'real'. The other is that the first half of the movie is painfully slow - thankfully, things pick up. In fact, where I found the first EDT great APART from the climax, with EDT2 it's the other way around; the climax (which lasts about 20 minutes) is a jaw-dropping bloodbath and easily the best part of the movie.

What's great is great, but overall, 6.5/10.

Yes, I definitely liked this one. And to think I almost didn't watch it because of a number of very negative reviews. This probably has something to do with this movie not being a typical sequel. It really does not have much to do with the plot of the original Evil Dead Trap and I'm sure that's disappointing to many. They are both fairly gory and have some thematic material in common, but that's about it.

Actually, I can think of so many reasons why people might not like this movie. The main character, Aki, is fat! She's not attractive at all. The rest of the cast is not too great to look at either. So if you agree with Dario Argento and love to watch beautiful women get mutilated in horror movies, this one ain't gonna cut it! Towards the end, this one gets pretty heavy on the surrealism and it's pretty easy to lose track of what's going on. I admit, there were a few moments where I wasn't too sure what I was supposed to be thinking about the what the hell was going on, but hey, that's surrealism and I liked it.

The surreal moments work because they are effective in being very nightmarish. The visuals are fantastic. The pacing is slow, but this was a GOOD decision on the part of the filmmakers. There's no question that it added to the frightening atmosphere of the movie.

If you liked the first, I think there's a good chance you will like this one as well as long as you don't actually expect a continuation. This movie can stand alone and I recommend it even if you haven't seen the first. Many people seem to really dislike this one, but it's worth your time and is much more well-done than you might expect. I was certainly surprised.

One last thing: the kid in this movie is one of the most frightening ever! Usually a "scary" kid in a horror movie makes me laugh and turns out pretty embarrassing, but this kid... creepy!