Night Trap

Night Trap is so old, obscure and out of print that I had to order an Amazon copy just to make sure it was even real, and not some dream I had as a kid. It's real enough, and a glorious helping of low budget supernatural tomfoolery at that, with two charismatic character actors headlining. Robert Davi, in a rare lead role, plays a headstrong New Orleans cop who is hunting down a serial killer (Michael Ironside) that appears to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for invincibility and a host of freaky deaky evil superpowers. Davi's father was also a cop who pursued Ironside, and the monster likes to taunt both of them, leaving a trail of bodies in the hectic celebration of Mardi Gras. There's a million of these type of movies, and they're all across the board in terms of quality. It comes down to script and actors, really, as there's never enough money to make any real visual magic. This one has a mile wide mean streak though, Ironside's villain is a full on moustache twirling, nightmarish fiend and the veteran tough guy plays him as such. Matched against Davi, another notorious badass, it's a B movie royal rumble that hits high notes of intensity, schlock and pulpy, violent delirium in all the right cues. Fun stuff if you're a fan of these actors, and can actually locate a copy.

It's just slow. There was so little to the plot that the director had to stretch out each scene until even the action seemed slow motion. The camera work as noticeably stiff and fixed in many scenes. The acting by the main protagonists was uninspired, but consistent.

The concept of whether Michael Ironside's character is the devil, or merely one of his overconfident myrmidons, is vague at best; as are his motives. But then one seems not to actually require motives in a horror film. It isn't something I fret about.

Still, Night Trap has some qualities to recommend it. Robert Davi, stone-faced, and purposeful, is interesting to watch as a cop who is just not quite the classic loner/rebel. John Amos is there too, but his performance is much too understated. I kept watching for him to fall asleep. Michael Ironside is more or less wasted in his part. He just struts around most of the time, and occasionally makes some threat or pejorative pronouncement in a stentorian and rather flat basso voice. The supporting cast did a good job though; and their characters were engaging. Everyone comes together to work out the meagre plot in a way that makes the film at least good escapism; and weak but reasonable horror. I'll often watch it if I see it come on cable. It's one of those "guy" films for when you just want to lean back in the recliner and escape for a while; and perhaps take a nap or two. If only it moved a little faster.

When running Action International Pictures, filmmaker David A. Prior made a bunch of ultra cheap and tacky B movies. When A.I.P. transformed into West Side Pictures, things improved - but not by much. For this West Side production, Prior was able to afford a decent cast with talented actors Michael Ironside and Robert Davi. And the movie looks somewhat slicker than Prior's past productions. But apart from those things, not much else in this movie succeeds. Ironside and Davi give decent performances, but you don't see them acting to their full potential. Maybe it was because of the low budget, which constantly films in run-down and anonymous locations. It might also be because of the script, which is sorely lacking a decent explanation for Ironside's villain character. But the biggest problem is that the movie unfolds very slowly and with little excitement. Oh, there are a few unintentional laughs along the way (a car manages to overturn and explode while going five miles an hour, and Davi keeps on all his clothes during a sex scene), but there are not enough to even recommend this movie as camp. One final word of warning: the DVD release just copied an ex-rental VHS tape, which makes the movie look even more tacky.

When a slew of bodies starts piling up on Mardi Gras, a detective realizes the killer's an immortal Satan-possessed madman who's targeting him and his loved ones during his spree and must find a way to stop him before it's too late.

This turned out to be quite the enjoyable pseudo-slasher with a lot of great points. The main thing here is the fact that this one tends to have more of an Action film feel throughout, which is quite enjoyable since it provides a pace and tone early on that keeps this entertaining and enjoyable enough while featuring enough to keep it interesting. With a large section of time devoted to stopping his different rampages, including a chase through a slew of back-alleys and apartment buildings, a car chase through a deserted train-yard and a multi-car chase through the city streets to save another victim at the end, this has more than enough to stay interesting throughout with plenty of fine action scenes within even before getting into all the shootings and explosions that pop up within this. All-told, it makes for quite an exciting and enjoyable series of scenes before getting into the far-more-suspenseful than expected stalking scenes here as the immortality makes it quite obvious what's going to happen to the potential victims. That makes the sequences stand out a little more than usual because there's far more at stake than just a typical slasher villain and throws the sequences such as the assault on the voodoo queen or the encounter in the strip club into more suspenseful areas due to the rather creepy vibe that goes along with such a character interacting with someone unaware of that condition, and that both are among the film's highlights is a good sign of that. After that, though, this one does tend to fall off slightly with the fact that the film does tend to solve absolutely nothing about the killer. We get so little about his intent as well as his back-story, which makes the rampage far more confusing than anything due to the incessant and rather unnecessary lack of knowledge we get here since there's even a plot-point in the second half about the killer being in the area once before and how it relates to the situation at the time, but yet nothing is done with it and none of what's revealed there gets any closer to solving the mystery of what's going on. The finale comes off as an after-thought as well, being so ho-hum about it's resolution that there's not a lot to like about it, and the fact that there's just such a strong Action-film feel here that it does tend to supersede the Horror enough to make it feel a lot less creepy than it could've been since it does work when it tries at doing so. All told, this is a fine if slightly uneven effort.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity and a sex scene.

Robert Davi is Awesome that's the first thing i have to say!!!

Davi is one of those rugged cool tough guy solid acting B-movie stars, who is always good in what they star in even if the movie isn't that good.

Night Trap is a fun pure 90's straight to video supernatural Thriller. There definitely a very slow pace to this film but i find it relaxing & very chill.

Robert Davi is a gem of an actor in my opinion, he's been there in so many movies we grew up watching like The Goonies, Predator 2, Die Hard, Raw Deal & has had a good career within the video store era. I've been a Davi fan since Maniac Cop 2 & Maniac Cop 3, he was great in those sequels & I've checked out alot of his DTV work & discovered gems like Center of the Web, The Bad Pack, Peacekeeper & Night Trap. Davi is always enjoyable on screen to me & i always like his serious approach to his characters with his usual characters traits like always smoking & often sarcastic & cynical. Davi is a rugged looking "Character Actor" that has had a solid career in B-movie land & he's always interesting & better when he gets to play a hard-ass cop like he did here in Night Trap, a tough no-nonsense New Orleans cop & one of his best roles. Low-budget production yes but Night Trap is a fun, relaxing supernatural thriller that really has a nice ambience to it & makes for a great piece of late-night B-movie entertainment.

It's got a nice creepy atmosphere & a cool new Orleans setting & two very good B-movie stars Davi & Michael Ironside, both great & a nice face off together.

Ironside plays an evil serial killer with supernatural powers who is stalking & killing beautiful ladies at night & Davi is the rugged, plays by his own rules tough cop, trying to stop him & it all plays out rather good & sometimes exciting!!!

Yes there's times it's not very exciting & it feels slow but then something cool will happen & Davi & Ironside are always great to watch on screen.

I liked the voodoo type stuff that's in here & it makes New Orleans a cool place for our hero to investigate, i really like the Madi gras carnival scenes with everyone having fun & celebrating while Davi is on the hunt for Ironside it's all done well & exciting.

It's dark & fun & has that early 90's low budget sleazy cheap feel to it at times, but that's fine i loved & lived that era of straight-to-video slashers, cop thriller's & Horror's starring cool B-movie actors & i love it.

If you grew up watching this stuff like i did than it's an enjoyable little flick, rough & cheap in all it's low-budget vhs charm.