Trapped Ashes

A group gets trapped in a movie set and the tour guide (Henry Gibson) suggests they tell real-life horror stories and they may be let go.

In the first segment, Phoebe (Rachel Veltri) can't get any parts and figures she needs a boob job. She gets boob implants from a cadaver and gets sci-fi parts immediately. But, those boobs have a mind of their own. In a twist on Teeth, there are teeth in the nipples! In segment two, Julia (Lara Harris) goes on a trip to Japan with her husband Henry (Scott Lowell). Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) directs this segment which combines art, animation and reality in a really creepy ghost story. Henry was hoping to put some spark back in their sex life, but it was Julia that got the spark in this tale of necrophilia.

Monte Hellman, who shot some of the footage seen in the US in A Fistful of Dollars, directed the third segment, which focused on movies. John Saxon (From Dusk Till Dawn, Beverly Hills Cop III) becomes friends with Stanley (Tygh Runyan), and things went well until Nina (Amelia Cooke) shows up. This story has an interesting twist, but that comes at the end.

Visual effects supervisor John Gaeta gets his first directing job in the fourth segment. It was really a grotesque tale about a girl (Michèle-Barbara Pelletier) who was born with a worm. They couldn't kill the tapeworm in her mother without killing her also, so they grew inside together. Thing is, the worm never died, and it helped her when she needed it most - it was her twin after all.

Really great stories, but the ending was weird.

Anthology films rarely work for me. Most of them are as uneven as twenty miles of bad road. TRAPPED ASHES was yet another bumpy ride.

Six people are trapped in a room and must relate terrible things that they've had happen to them to their host (Henry Gibson). What follows are four segments directed by auteurs not necessarily known for their horror chops (with the possible exception of Sean S. Cunningham). Each segment prominently features the ties between sex and death so prevalent in horror films. One features a woman with vampiric breasts whose lamprey mouthed nipples sucks the blood of her lovers. Another woman falls for a corpse who whisks her away to hell while on Japanese holiday. A succubus falls for Stanley Kubrick. And the last, poor woman shares the insatiable hunger of her fraternal twin, a tapeworm.

The first segment sets up expectations that TRAPPED ASHES will be a much more lighthearted film. Surprisingly, this segment was directed by Ken Russell though it felt like something from Joe Dante or Paul Bartel (it was especially reminiscent of Irvin Kershner's "Hell Toupee" episode of "Amazing Stories"). The Sean S. Cunningham sequence felt like a pail gaijin aping of Hideo Nakata (THE RING) and John Gaeta's just didn't work at all. I enjoyed the Kubrick bit, courtesy of Monte Hellman - a perennial Cashiers du Cinemart fave - except that the horror element seemed like an afterthought.

Surprised that this wasn't called TALES FROM THE CRYPT: TRAPPED ASHES, this is one that can be missed by all except die hard John Saxon fans.

Remember all those British-produced anthology horror films that sometimes made it to US theaters back in the 70s, but were more often screened on Saturday late night or Sunday afternoon television? Stuff like THE VAULT OF HORROR or TORTURE GARDEN or FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (or TALES FROM THE CRYPT or TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS and on and on)? TRAPPED ASHES is a heartfelt and enthusiastic (and largely successful) attempt to revisit that kind of sometimes-serious, sometimes-funny, sometimes-trashy scare flick.

Encompassing four short episodes and a wrap-around set in a deserted Hollywood studio tour's "haunted house," TRAPPED ASHES explores vampiric breast implants, horny spirits of suicidal Japanese monks, tapeworm twins, and the soul-sucking girlfriend of Stanley Kubrick. Some of the episodes are more successful than others, with the most confident probably being the "Stanley's Girlfriend" one, directed by the most decidedly NON-genre vet Monte Hellman. It's a really touching, elegiac little piece, full of imagination and a genuine love for the world of film. The other three stories - and the wraparound - are more traditionally horrific, but also very inspired in their mixture of sex, horror and a warped approach to the genre. The Ken Russell segment in particular, "The Girl with the Golden Breasts," had the audience in Toronto alternately laughing with glee or squirming in discomfort, leading to three audience casualties!

TRAPPED ASHES will appeal most to horror fans who are looking for a sometimes familiar, but definitely unique and twisted type of anthology genre film. Full of breasts, blood, great special effects, appearances by older actors like Henry Gibson, John Saxon, and a cool, "blink and you'll miss him!" cameo by none other than Dick Miller, it's a wonderful horror-movie debut for screenwriter Dennis Bartok and a great turn by all the veteran directors (and new director/vet f/x guy John Gaeta).

Highly recommended for a fun and old-fashioned-style scary time at the movies.

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!!