Terror Trap

They should've sold this script as Vacancy 3. A couple who are having marital problems are involved in a crash on a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere. The other driver takes off. Cue the creepy Sheriff (Jeff Fahey) who recommends staying at a dodgy motel up the road until they can arrange a tow. Cue the creepy guy behind the counter who don't much like them city folk. Break out the guys in masks, the disturbance in the room next door, the loud banging, the awful realisation that they're being watched and then introduce the sicko's who are viewing this snuff for their own sick pleasure. The only differences between Terror Trap and Vacancy are the use of a sinister Sheriff as opposed to a smiley Gas Station Attendant and the fact that the snuff customers are watching a live feed of the mayhem as opposed to buying the videos.

Cue Michael Madsen as the dude in charge. I'm a huge Tarantino fan and I have oodles of respect for Michael Madsen, but someone seriously needs to tell that guy to stop playing Mr Blonde in every movie. Whether he's playing a good guy or bad guy, his persona is always the same. Although, he was quite different when he played the lovable cat burglar in Heart and Souls. Wait a minute... that was Tom Sizemore.

I have a newfound appreciation for Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale's performances in Vacancy. I couldn't bring myself to care even slightly about the main couple. The woman, Nancy, is the most unlikeable heroin I've seen for a long time. About 10 minutes into the movie I started preying for her to get brutally slashed to death, just to shut her up.

The only reason I made it to the end of this film is because it hadn't been reviewed on IMDb yet. That's how bored I was. My review is quite generous. Save yourself!

Check out my IMDb List for some better suggestions. "HORROR/THRILLER: Obscure, Overlooked & Underrated" http://www.imdb.com/list/8QFZ78e4Ar8/

Where do I start with Terror Trap AKA Error Crap. My goodness, this movie is a utter failure in movie making. I don't mind the everything they stole from Vacancy. No sir, that's fine. What I mind, however, was the illogical plot line, the amateur hour actors and the lack of any sort of gore. The plot line might be similar to Vacancy but the execution was much worse.

For those who want to see Michael Madsen, don't. His presence in this movie is completely useless. In fact, the movie will make more sense if he's not in it. It seems they just inserted him in so that they can have Michael Madsen in the credit.

For those looking for gore, forget about it. This movie has none. It's basically as tame as Die Hard. Guys either get killed by guns or knives. And they don't show the killing scene.

A complete and utter failure of movie making, I can't stress that enough.

While driving at night on a lonely road, the car of estranged couple Don and Nancy is hit twice by another car in the middle of nowhere. Nancy asks for help and unpleasant sheriff Cleveland offers to take them to the nearby Motel Royal Vista and wait until the morning, when their car would be towed.

Another reviewer called this a lame ripoff of "Vacancy". Well, it might be a little bit lame. And yeah, it has some hints of "Vacancy" in it. But an outright ripoff? No way.

What this film has that "Vacancy" lacked is the cult actor appeal: Jeff Fahey as the sheriff, Michael Madsen as his typecast bad guy self. Sure, "Vacancy" is the better movie and has the better cast, the better plot and all that... but does Luke Wilson have the horror fan base that Fahey and Madsen have? No way.

TERROR TRAP is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, an undisguised rip-off of VACANCY, a film which was hardly original to begin with. This bargain-basement B-movie sees an unlikeable middle-aged couple break down in the middle of nowhere and unwisely check in to a remote motel which turns out to be inhabited by voyeuristic psychopaths with murder in mind. What follows will surprise nobody, and indeed the biggest thing about this movie is the effort required to stay awake throughout it.

It's amateur night all around when it comes to production values, with a poor script and worse direction failing to elicit any kind of tension from the obvious premise. At one point the director is so desperate for thrills that he's reduced to shooting a scene straight from a softcore porn movie to try to flog new life into the narrative, but it's a failed attempt. It doesn't help that Heather Marsden's female lead is one of the most irritating I've seen in a movie in a while, grouching and bitching her way through the script and making every viewer hope she'll shut up and die soon.

The two familiar-faces-fallen-on-hard-times here are Michael Madsen and Jeff Fahey, neither of them a stranger to B-movie fare. Madsen makes no effort whatsoever, just sort of plodding his way through the production and disappearing for long intervals, while Fahey shouts a lot and makes you feel sorry for him considering Robert Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR wasn't so long ago. TERROR TRAP is dismal indeed.

They could of done better with the cat they had, a shame