Trapped Alive

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.

Three convicts escape from prison at Xmas time. They hijack a car containing two young women who are off to a party, and they all find themselves trapped in an abandoned mine. Not much horror so far but eventually, one by one, they are attacked by a hideous cannibalistic mine dweller. A cop also joins the group, but not until after he has broken off his search and had sex with a frustrated housewife who lives next to the mine! There are two ways of looking at movies like these. Firstly there is the honest review, based on merit. In this instance I would score it 3/10. This is a BAD movie, be it the terrible, over the top acting, the laughable scenarios within the film or the whole cheesiness of it. The other way of looking at it is entertainment value, and this one did make me chuckle numerous times, on the grounds that it was so laughably bad. For that I would score it 6/10, so I'm going with 5/10 overall. Cameron Mitchell is in the cast, a good actor who just looks completely out of place. The rest of the cast can't act but they seemed to be having fun. There is a little sex & nudity but it doesn't have a great deal of gore.It is also a little slow to go going horror-wise, and even then it does not come to much. The sets used for the mine were pretty good.

It's fair to say that a lot of dross was made in the 1980s and TRAPPED ALIVE (aka TRAPPED) is a good example of this. It's a cheesy, low budget piece of nonsense that attempts to combine the thriller and horror genres but does neither successfully. The plot is the most interesting thing in it but even that's mishandled, leaving this a near unwatchable viewing experience.

The film sat on the shelf for five years before release which gives you some idea of the quality. The story sees some violent criminals bust out of prison and take some young people hostage. The local police department are in hot pursuit, but all of the characters end up being trapped in an abandoned mine where they're pursued by a cannibalistic killer.

It's predictable stuff indeed and feels so slapdash that it's impossible to enjoy. The early scene-staging stuff is quite dull but when the action shifts to the mine things get really dark (visually) so you can't figure out what's happening. There's some gloopy gore here and a lot of bad acting from the cast, including Cameron Mitchell in one of his '80s-era anything-goes B-movies. The killer is a visual disappointment looking just like an old man and there's no bang here, just fizz.

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.

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."