Trapped Ashes

Maybe it's too much of an assumption, or a generalization, but horror fans love anthologies! "Waxworks" (1924) and "Dead of Night" (1945) were the pioneers, and during the 70s in Britain, the Amicus Studios even specialized in them with a couple of classics as results, like "The House that Dripped Blood" and "Asylum". The ultimately popular omnibus came in the 80s, with George A. Romero's "Creepshow". Starting from the 90s, it became somewhat of a gimmick to have the separate segments directed by different - and preferably prestigious - directors. The variety of names usually makes it even more attractive for fans, but the participation of famous directors doesn't necessarily guarantee a brilliant anthology.

The names of the directors involved in "Trapped Ashes" is impressive, to say the least. Joe Dante ("The Howling", "Piranha") signed for the wraparound story, which gathers a group of seven people on a guided tour in an abandoned Hollywood movie studio. Dante, always his jolly self, takes the opportunity to give small roles to his buddies (like Dick Miller and Henry Gibson) but he's not given much material to work with otherwise.

The actual segments vary from extremely disappointing to surprisingly shocking. Sean S. Cunningham, horror-immortal thanks to the original "Friday the 13th", delivers the weakest contribution with a confusing and quite pretentious tale set in mystical Japan. The best story - or, better said, my own personal favorite - is a tie between Ken Russell's "The Girl with the Golden Breast" and John Gaeta's "My Twin, the Worm". The first is tacky but pleasantly deranged variation on the "I'll do whatever it takes to make it in Hollywood" theme, and I particularly love the second because of its rather disturbed premise of a fetus and a parasite developing in the womb together. Monte Hellman's tale is mediocre at best, in spite of the presence of the almighty John Saxon and the ingenious references towards Stanley Kubrick.

Undeniably, the main theme in every short story is sex. In fact, almost the entire film qualifies as pure body-horror, which also means that the sex and nudity is never arousing or even pleasant to look at. All the individual segments may look unfinished, since they all end rather abruptly, but even the lesser experienced horror fanatics can guess the real denouement comes at the end of the wraparound story. "Trapped Ashes" is a decent effort and an atypical anthology. I'm glad that I saw it, but I can't label it as a classic, nor a favorite.

I went to see this solely on the basis that it was an anthology horror film. The best I can say about it is that if you are looking for a movie that will make you writhe in discomfort for a couple hours (which is what I was hoping for), this will probably do the trick. The first two stories have the combined effect of making you never want to have sex again. The fourth attempts (less successfully) to put you off both sex and food. The third is a bit of breather in that it has none of the grisly horror of the others and feels like a decent, thoughtful movie that was mistakenly put in the reel. The central narrative, unfortunately, is pretty dull. All of the stories together, while varying in tone, can be boiled down to one basic message: women should be feared. The movie on the whole is an admirable effort and there are certain images that will stay with you for all time either for their grossness or coolness (the breast surgery and the womb-cam in particular), but it does feel like it could have achieved a lot more.

The actress Phoebe Kane (Rachel Veltri) and her boyfriend Andy (Jayce Bartok), the architect Henry (Scott Lowell) and his wife Julia (Lara Harris), the former director Leo (John Saxon) and Nathalie (Michèle- Barbara Pelletier) receive an invitation for a VIP Tour in the Ultra Studios. When they see the spooky house where the missing director Desmond Hacker filmed "Hysteria", they ask their tour guide (Henry Gibson) to stop the car to visit the infamous house. In a moment, they find that they are trapped in a room without any exit and the guide suggests them to tell the scariest experience of each one like in "Hysteria". Each one tells a spooky tale until they finally discover the end of their stories.

"Trapped Ashes" follows the structure of "Creepshow" with a lead story and four segments in the format of "Tales from the Crypt". The lead segment is directed by Joe Dante and the motive why the participants disclose their stories is silly and unreasonable. Ken Russell directs the funny and bizarre "The Girl with the Golden Breasts" with the artificial breasts implanted by the actress sucking human blood. Sean S. Cunningham directs "Jibaku" with the journey to hell of Julia in Japan. Monte Hellman directs the erotic "Stanley's Girlfriend" and with sexy Nina performed by the gorgeous unknown Amelia Cooke affecting the relationship of two best friends. John Gaeta directs the gruesome segment "My Twin, The Worm". In the end, "Trapped Ashes" is a good entertainment despite the unfair reviews in IMDb. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Armadilha do Terror" ("Trap of Terror")

Note: On 17 January 2012, I saw this film again.

On 21 August 2015, I saw this film again.

All I can say is THANK GOD FOR NETFLIX!!! I'm the type of cinephile who will buy a movie sight unseen if the filmmakers interest me or if it's a horror film that sounds interesting. In that sense "Trapped Ashes" fulfilled the criteria perfectly....

I realized recently though that I really am wasting money buying movies unseen so I signed up with Netflix figuring that I could rent new releases that appealed to me & if I liked em' I would purchase em'. "Trapped Ashes" was a movie I was dying to see. How could it go wrong?? Russell, Cunninngham, Dante, Hellman & Gaeta (The rookie of the 5) each directing a segment of a horror film?? It's gotta rock...Doesn't it?? It doesn't rock. It's actually pretty much a complete failure. It plays like one of those softcore "Horror" movies that used to play on Showtime in the late 80's thru the mid 90's. Aside from some so-so effects in the first segment there is nothing to recommend this disaster at all.

I returned it to Netflix on the same day I received it, Thankful for the money I saved by not purchasing it. Be warned...It sucks!!

I don't know why but I used to be a huge fan of Creepshow and Tales from the crypt although the later series were rather lame. "Trapped Ashes" is very much in this tradition and features 4 horror shorts bound together in a surrounding plot of 2 couples and 2 solo people going on a sightseeing on a Hollywood movie site and getting stuck in an hold horror house with an old guy who leads them around. Turns out they can only leave if each tells their most frightening personal story... so here we go... Story 1 is about an actress who doesn't get any new jobs and decides to get a boob job. Now after her life turns around for the positive she soon realizes that her breast are vampire boobies feeding on human blood which doesn't go to well for her lovers. This story is pretty bizarre and trashy and captures the spirit of old "Tales from the crypt" stories best. Its totally idiotic but the end is so over the top its fun. Story 2 is a ghost-story about a couple moving to Japan where the woman is seduced by a monk who dies and takes her to hell where she turns into a succubus. Her husband soon learns he has to free her from there by feeding her a spell. The story is OK, but as frightening or thrilling as a Sesamestreet Episode. At least you get some naked shots and some nice animation sequences of old Japanese paintings which work pretty well. Story 3 is pretty much nothing leading nowhere. An actor and his best friend a scriptwriter regularly meet for chess until a girl appears. Soon the scriptwriter disappears and the actor begins a love affair to find out years later that the girl is some kind of ghost/witch/vampire... honestly I couldn't care less because the episode is boring and makes no sense. Story 4 is another strange one about a girl who grows up in her mothers womb along with a tapeworm and lives with a strange desire for collecting food for her "twin". When she is treated badly by her stepmother the "twin" takes revenge.

What most of the stories suffer from is incredibly long passages of introducing of characters and that is way stretched and often even unnecessary for the plod. So when the action starts most of the time is up and there is not too much time for the horror to happen. Like most of those story collections there is some bad apples in there and I couldn't recommend this average movie just for the vampire boobies and the finale. This is just for real die hard fans of horror shorts... the slow ghost movies won't be too interesting for neither "Tales..." Fans nor others because they don't lead nowhere. Too bad...