Steel Trap

It took several sittings for me to make it through this movie, but it must have been passable, since I didn't abandon it.

A handful of people leave a New Years party for another party on another floor. They all get trapped on the floor, and characters start getting picked off.

Could be fun.

The main mystery in a story like this is the question of what the killer's motive is. That usually can be figured out once the characters figure out what they have in common. Instead, the characters mostly seem to abandon trying to figure out why they're in the situation, who their antagonist is, or what they can do to save themselves. They also spend a lot of time splitting up into groups.

The reviews seem to pay a lot of attention to the kills. They mostly seemed irrelevant to me. Most of them are off-screen. No particular tension there.

The dialogue is strange. I can't put my finger on it, but there are occasionally lines that jump out as being unusual. Even when the dialogue isn't weird, it's campy.

What I found most annoying was the picture quality. It's shot competently, but the lighting was clearly an issue. Since most of the movie takes place under low-light conditions, the picture quality has real problems. There's a lot of grain, a certain haze over most of it. Normally, I would ignore this, but it is present in almost every shot in a hallway, which accounts for around 70-80% of the movie.

The eventual reveal at the end is okay. I think some people would like it, some people will hate it. I think it would have done better with a little more setup.

I first saw this in 2008 on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently by fast forwarding some boring scenes. Plot lifted from Valentine, Shakma, etc. This was made to cash in on the success of Saw series n Cube. The story starts like 90s Shakma wher a bunch of fellas r trapped in an abandoned building n they r stalked by a killer rather than a baboon but here the story ends like a 90s forgettable slasher.

It is also heavily lifted from Valentine (2001). While Valentine boasted of some good kills n amazing star cast this one is slow with lousy kills n novice star cast.

P.S. nothing happens in the film like the stuff shown on the poster. Very misleading. Ther ain't no traps.

If you're looking for a horror movie that is just simple and a bit "mindless", then Steel Trap may just be for you.

I'll admit, I was only interested in this movie because I loved the PS3 game Heavy Rain, and when I discovered Laurence Pascal was in this movie, I had to check it out.

Its starts off interesting with the use of children nursery rhymes to try to add a scary element to the movie, but then half way in, decides to forget about it. The title of the movie, and the cover, does throw you off. The scene in the cover never happened in the movie, and the movie didn't really had any traps. It tries to draw you in by making you believe it's going to be a unique horror film, but ends up being another slasher movie. I did not have an issue with the acting as much as I did with the script. It seemed like the writers were trying too hard to make the characters sound "American" with the overuse of profanity and the poor choice of dialog. Along with the poor development of the characters' back story, it made the characters seem too unrealistic and unlikable to the point where you most wouldn't didn't favor anyone enough to hope they survive. This did hurt the movie towards the end of the film, when things were being resolved, as all the pieces of the puzzle didn't add up well enough for me. The movie even tries to hint itself at the ending and the killer, but as stated before, the lack of story development hurt the film's chance to give you that "oh my gosh" ending it was trying to go for. It wasn't a horrible ending, I just felt it could have worked itself to it better. As with Saw, the film tires to teach you a lesson at the end, but seems like the idea was thrown at the end to try to give it some explanation and closure.

The film lacked a lot of substance, but on the plus side, the film was very simple. As I said, it was very mindless. Not overcomplicated, nothing too confusing thrown at you, honestly, Steel Trap is good if you just want a B or C rated horror movie to throw in the DVD player on a night you don't have anything better to do.

Overall, good for a one time watch.

Pay no attention to the cover art, there are no spinning saw blades, and I'm not sure who that woman is supposed to be. In any case, if you need a horror movie for New Year's Eve, you could do worse than this one. It is generally enjoyable, and actually stays truer to the New Year's Eve theme throughout the movie than Bloody New Year (1987) which got kind of Christmas-y in the middle. Anyway..

The movie opens on a New Year's Eve party complete with a rock performance of Auld Lang Syne on top of an abandoned office building. 5 people & 2 party-crashers who come along are diverted to a "VIP" party on the 27th floor by text message, where they find strange surprises waiting for them. As they split off to solve riddles, the killer starts picking them off in twisted ways.

The production values are good, and personally I think the acting is not bad. The writing is kind of crap though. The initial character responses make no sense. Upon discovering place cards that insult each of them, they are too excited about digging into cake rather than being suspicious. The dialogue is frequently bad. The characters go nuts rather quickly, and the "guy you now hate" is clearly reaching to make you hate him, going off about everything that is too stupid to go off about.

But overall the movie is enjoyable. The level of psychotic is fun. It somewhat reminds me of the 2001 movie Valentine. If you liked Valentine, you'll probably like Steel Trap.

this was a pretty lame horror movie in my opinion.the kills are pretty tame,even weak.i'd say it was a Saw rip off,but it doesn't even come close to that film.it's not nearly as clever.none of the actors seem to be putting fort any effort.the dialogue is pretty lame too,in my mind at least.for most of the running time,this thing is trying to be a serious horror film,but it abruptly changes tone at the end and becomes a black comedy.ironically,the ending is the only part of the movie that works,for me anyway.i expected it to take the usual route most horror/slasher flicks take,but it didn't so kudos to the filmmakers for that at least.still,that does little to save the movie.for me Steel Trap is a 4/10