Evil Dead Trap

Very very minor spoiler.

Plot summary: A TV crew get lured to a disused military installation and get stalked by….a killer.

After being introduced to Ikeda-san's work by his abysmal 2001 effort "Shadow of the Wraith" I had zero expectations for this, especially after I found out he also directed one of the later Meiko Kaji-less instalments of the "Female Prisoner Scorpion" series.

How surprised I was then, to see just what a solid film "Evil Dead Trap" is. The film certainly doesn't mess around; introducing the characters and setting up the plot in about fifteen minutes, all perfectly spliced around a videotaped Fulci-esquire eye slicing scene. The plot, initially owing much to Videodrome, takes a back seat as the TV crew get down to the business of walking backwards, running further into darkened warehouses when they should be going outside and having sex when they should be watching out for the psychopathic knife-wielder.

The ripped off plot and horror clichés aside, the film scores its points with an array of violent, gruesome and inventive deaths, with an abundance of blood, nudity and maggots. Whenever I thought the film was regressing into conventionality, it always surprised me by turning back on itself, usually with an aforementioned brutal killing. However the ending was what most shocked me; what seemed to be a conventional explanation for the "mystery" of the killer eventually culminated in a horrific gorefest that probably got David Cronenberg wondering if he'd misplaced a script.

This is mainstream 80s J-horror at its best, taking influence from the greats such as Cronenberg and Fulci. It makes up for its shortcomings with a shocking amount of violence and gore, the occasional graphic sex scene and a brilliant conclusion.

A must for all gorehounds and horror fanatics.

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.

SPOILERS

Nami Tsuchiya is an ambitious young reporter who hosts a late night public access show. One day she returns to her office to find a mysterious tape sitting on her desk. She watches it only to see the directions to an abandoned factory where someone kills a young woman. Nami recruits several friends to go to the factory in effort to finally get the news story she's been needing to become famous. Once they arrive at the factory someone, or something, systematically picks off all of Nami's friends without mercy in a game of cat and mouse. Nami then meets a mysterious stranger that claims to be looking for his brother and knows the way out of the maze-like factory.

The first half of this film is outstanding. The gore is great, the plot is great and the pacing is great, but then after all of Nami's friends are killed and she meets the stranger the pacing just sort of dies up until the climax. It goes from being one of the best horror movies I've ever seen into a film that becomes, well, boring. There are several long sequences, of like three or four consecutive minutes, where we just have Nami walking around in a field sulking over her dead friends. I rarely say this, but The Evil Dead Trap would have really benefited by cutting about ten minutes off the runtime. Then it picks back up at the end for a rather twisted ending very reminiscent of the work of Larry Cohen, in sort of a mix between It's Alive and God Told Me To.

As I mentioned, the gore in this film is excellent. The opening murder scene features an example of eyeball violence and brutal close-ups that rival even the best of Fulci. As soon as the television crew arrives to the factory you get the feeling of a great 1980s slasher film, containing both spine chilling suspense and good gore once the killer makes his move.

Overall this was a great film surrounded by a decent amount of material that didn't need to be there. Had the pacing of the whole film been what it was in the first half then this would go down among my all time favorites, however it gets too dull and pointless to earn that honor. Instead, in my opinion it goes down as a good slasher film that I am glad I purchased but didn't live up to my expectations.

MY GRADE: B

Take a dash of atmospheric horror, add a huge helping of giallo, an equal amount of slasher films and a sprinkle of sci-fi horror. Filter through Dario Argento's 'Suspiria'-like soundtrack and use of primary colors and Shi'nya Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo: Iron Man's frenetic black and white images and industrial soundtrack and you've got Evil Dead Trap. Throw in a pinch of B-movie horror ala Frank Henenlotter and Alain Roback to spice things up further. The English translation is top-notch and over all the movie is easy to follow. The lead actress comes across well and the deaths are inventive for the most part. The gore is fairly graphic, with squirting blood foreshadowing the Tokyo Shock films to come almost two decades later. Sure, it's not Oscar material, but cinephiles will enjoy picking out the various influences and the average viewer will get an over-the-top cult film. My only bone with the film is that the director didn't have to use EVERY influence, perhaps picking one or two themes only, but I guess that's one of the things that makes it over-the-top.

Sure, the soundtrack borrows from Goblin, the ending is pretty nonsensical, and there ain't much plot, but it's definitely one of the best slashers I've seen. There's a lot of good camera work, plus some of the goriest, most brutal kill scenes ever. The eyeball bit makes me squirm every time. The film takes a turn for the worse at the end when a supernatural element is introduced, but I just laugh.

Gorehounds will appreciate the bloody kills, but this is purely an exercise in style over substance. Enjoyable cult movie if you're in the right frame of mind...