Armadilha Malígna

This cult favorite B horror flick from Japan stars Miyuki Ono as Nami, the host of a late night TV program. One day, she receives in the mail a tape that contains footage of what appears to be an honest-to-God snuff film. Repulsed but fascinated, Nami assembles a camera crew (mostly female) and heads for the deserted factory where it is believed the footage was shot. Soon, Nami and company are subjected to repeated terrors, for there is indeed a killer on the premises.

At first, the set-up and the story (by Takashi Ishii) would seem to be on the routine side, but director Toshiharu Ikeda handles all of it in style, and delivers tons of potent doom-and-gloom atmosphere. The production design is truly first-rate, the gore by Shin'ichi Wakasa is first-rate ("Evil Dead Trap" can boast two great murder set pieces), the music (reminiscent of the Goblin score for "Suspiria", just one thing that "Evil Dead Trap" references) is good, and the performances (by a cast of Japanese porn stars) are capable. What elevates "Evil Dead Trap" is the big reveal at around the 82 minute mark, and the entire final act. It truly places poor Nami - who is put through the wringer over and over - into a vision of Hell. What's more, the disturbed antagonist is one that the audience can feel some pity for, as they just want their untenable situation to end.

Generally good fun, this does tend to be slowly paced, and a viewer could also see it as being repetitive, but it really does deliver a fair bit of genuine horror before those end credits start rolling. The splatter-riffic ending is truly one that is worth the wait.

Followed by two sequels.

Seven out of 10.

Although MERMAID LEGEND is my all-time favorite Ikeda film, EVIL DEAD TRAP, a derivative but fierce and violent shocker, is deserving of distinction.

It's a catalog of gory set pieces inspired by Dario Argento, Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi (of course), John Carpenter and Jess Franco.

Long before THE RING kick-started the "haunted videotape" craze, there was EVIL DEAD TRAP.

What distinguishes a lot of Japanese horror from American horror is brutality and explicitness. It's not that American horror hasn't been brutal (Texas CHAINSAW, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and FORCED ENTRY all tip the brutality scales), it's just that there's been a cultural shift against movies of this type (read: political correctness) in the West whereas the Japanese film industry hasn't caught that particular cancer.

EVIL DEAD TRAP is confused by itself at times and its ending is beyond silly, but you do get several gleefully gruesome deaths, a rape/strangulation highly deserving of an encore, several ingenious methods of murder and a cloying, brain sick atmosphere.

The electronic score serves the material nicely and the film's primary location, an abandoned government facility, has a great Texas CHAINSAW stink.

Nice, juicy effects, too.

Avoid the wretched EVIL DEAD TRAP 2.

Sitting down and watching my newly bought EVIL DEAD TRAP DVD I was blown away at the scenes that unfolded before my eyes. This movie has gained a huge status over the years and now that it is available on DVD we won't need those crappy bootlegs anymore. I had heard much about the film's reputation and can say I was really impressed. The story is intelligent and well-thought out while the execution was played just perfectly. Evil Dead Trap contains an especially delicious array of gory delights including sliced hands, gouged eyeball torture, impalement by spear contraption, cranium cracking, and neck breaking. This is quite the twisted film and this is ONLY the beginning! The first half is your basic stalk-n-slash story (Japanese style) with one freaky looking killer dressed in a black raincoat. Later, the movie progresses into something a bit more complex, some would say silly, but I enjoyed the move the film made. Let's just say it's something you wouldn't have seen coming. I loved the final showdown between Nami, and...wait I won't tell you, but in my opinion it's one of the best scenes in horror history. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. After all, like most have already said, the director takes a strong influence from veteran Italian horror-meisters like Argento and Fulci and even has some Evil Dead-like camera angles thrown in there. You could even say there's a bit of Cronenberg's genius in here as well ;-) How can you go wrong?

Now before you ask that question, this is NOT associated with the Sam Raimi classics. This is a pretty whacked Japanese horror movie of evil monster fetuses with bad attitudes. Not a really outstanding movie by any means, but I kept feeling like I was watching an older Italian slasher flick, especially with the GOBLIN-esque musical soundtrack pumping in at the action sequences. If you've ever seen any of Dario Argento's impressive horror movies, then you'll know exactly what the impression is I'm referring to. I also kept thinking to myself that there's just something strangely odd about the girls in this flick. And come to find out, they were actual AV Idol Pornstars. WOW! Japanese pornstars in a horror movie getting naked and getting "offed" in glorious deep red ways...Well, it makes this worth the money already!

After seeing The Evil Dead Trap, I'm not surprised at all that it has a rather strong cult following; as despite the fact that the plot is rather ludicrous and the film isn't particularly well thought out, it makes up for these problems with a plethora of special effects and a bucket of gore; and the result is a brilliantly fun piece of Japanese horror. The influence for this film is clearly far reaching, but the most obvious is probably the Cronenberg masterpiece Videodrome, though the oeuvre of Lucio Fulci seems to be an influence and of course the English title is a clear rip-off of a very popular early eighties horror film. The plot focuses on a late night reality TV show hosted a young lady named Nami. The show receives a videotape that includes apparently real snuff tape footage. This leads the team to go and track down the origin of the tape, and they arrive at an old warehouse. After gaining access to the facility, it's not long before the group begin being picked off by an unseen assailant.

The film could easily be seen as a slasher flick, but actually it's much more ambitious than that. The snuff footage at the beginning of the film sets the tone for the rest of it; the violence is extreme, but also rather realistic and that is carried on throughout. One of my favourite things about it was undoubtedly the atmosphere; director Toshiharu Ikeda makes best use of the location and the fact that the central characters are isolated from the outside world. The violence is often shown and extreme and this is what makes the film entertaining. It's also rather inventive and the film offers much more than merely another man with a knife. The problems regarding the plotting and character are somewhat condemning; I do feel that if a bit more time and attention were given to these areas then the film could easily have been a masterpiece. But even so, if you want a good gorefest then you really can't do better than this film! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to all horror fans.