Trapped Alive

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 had never heard about this 1988 horror movie titled "Trapped Alive" prior to sitting down to watch it here in 2022. I stumbled upon "Trapped Alive" by random chance, and of course I had to watch it, as it was a horror movie that I had never seen before.

The storyline in "Trapped Alive", as written by Leszek Burzynski and Julian Weaver. Is pretty straight forward actually, and easy to follow. However, on the same note, it should also be said that "Trapped Alive" is also a very generic and predictable movie. But at the same time it is a late 1980s horror movie that essentially has every corny ingredient to it; a generic horror plot, an implausible storyline that makes little sense if you look at it objectively, amazingly well-lit subterranean mine shafts, characters dumber than wood, a subterranean cannibalistic crazed person, toe-curling bad acting performances. So what's not to like here?

The acting performances in the movie were for the majority fairly okay for a movie of this caliber. But the acting performance put on towards the end of the movie by actress Elizabeth Kent (playing Rachel) was just so cringeworthy to behold that it has to be seen to be believed.

The pacing of the movie is slow, and nothing much of anything worthwhile happens before 51 minutes into the ordeal. And with a movie that runs at 92 minutes, then it was just too little too late.

Visually then director Leszek Burzynski's 1988 movie wasn't outstanding. The creature design wasn't scary or anything, and it made for a very sloppy on-screen-creature.

While I managed to sit through "Trapped Alive", I was only mildly entertained. And I can in all honesty say that this is not a movie that I will ever be returning to watch a second time.

My rating of "Trapped Alive" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

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.

The 80s have spawned countless low-budget slashers, and many of them are so terrible that you wonder how anyone even considered investing money in them. When you then bump into a late 80s slasher that apparently remained on the shelf until the 90s before it was released, you are even more wary. Is this slasher so disastrous that producers thought it was too bad to release even in the 80s?

"Trapped Alive" is one of them, but I can immediately reassure everyone: it is not worse than your average 80s slasher, and certainly not after the splendid restoration for BluRay. Of course, it's not good, either. The plot is about two beautiful young ladies who want to go out on Christmas Eve but are taken hostage by three escaped and very dangerous convicts. By avoiding a roadblock, they get stuck in an old abandoned mine, which turns out to be inhabited by a bewildered and cannibalistic monstrosity Talk about bad luck, right?

The script is full of annoying clichés. One of the gangsters - a pretty boy - is actually kind-hearted, the owner of the mine is all too aware of the presence of the creature, the inevitable Stockholm syndrome plot twist, etc. Of course, it also takes way too long before we get to see the monster, BUT ... He is worth the wait! "Trapped Alive" contains quite a bit of unsavory gore and a few wonderfully absurd dialogues. To make the film a bit more appealing, there's a touch of nudity, and the presence of genre veteran Cameron Mitchell (although his scenes are the dullest and most redundant ones). Certainly not mandatory viewing, but worthwhile for slasher fans.

A good few years before X-Factor, many years after Max Factor, neophyte horror director, Leszek Burzynski was,perhaps, percolating ideas for 'Trapped Alive'', and, I, for one, am jolly glad that he did! Quite frankly, if he didn't, this devilishly diverting, dirty minded horror film would have remained a mere figment, and with all the good will I can muster, any figment, no matter how well intentioned will ever play on my Sony region 2 Blu-ray player! (That said, should you be an avid fan of figments, I certainly meant no offence!) By the end of the 80s, the slasher cycle neared extinction, and, sadly, Leszek Burzynski's likeable, modestly satisfying subterranean, skin-flaying backwoods blood spiller 'Trapped Alive' was prematurely entombed as a Slasher relic.

It is a joyful experience to finally experience, Leszek Burzynski's previously buried underground shocker in this new, glisteringly gussied up Blu-ray presentation. Is it worth the wait? Well, that entirely depends on how receptive one's 80s horror gland is, fortunately mine remains an uncommonly virile organ, thrustingly appreciative of any lovingly reclaimed, long-forgotten historically hysterical horror opus from the gory days when film meant just that, film. Like any form of art, good, bad or indifferently made, its perceived beauty lies wholly in the perversely inclined peepers of said B-Movie beholder! If you still relish the likes of the majestically mutilating 'The Mutilator', or eccentric Mephistophelean murder-fest 'Satan's Blade' then you should embrace the Cameron Mitchell-starring, creepily claustrophobic, mine shaft-trapping, rot-faced cannibal redneck mutant rampaging shocker 'Trapped' with all the brutal tenacity of a Prison Yard coupling!

'Trapped Alive' aka 'Trapped', like Mapplethorpe's intimate photography, or that second over-generous serving of Blow fish Sushi, certainly isn't going to be everybody's fulsome chalice of frothing grume! For those with lead-lined stomachs and a more refined appreciation of the cinematic absurd may well 'unearth' much schlocky spectacle to amuse themselves in 'Trapped Alive' This is a roughly hewn, frequently fun, rumbustious slasher obscurity you can laugh 'with' or 'at', making it an ambidextrously amusing underground shocker! Burzynski's Trapped Alive maintains it's own unique charm which raises it far above the mirthless mire of routinely plagiarized horror grot clogging cinema's sinless slasher sewer of today.