What we have with Evil Dead Trap is nothing more than a Friday the 13th type slasher flick. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just far from what I expected. One day I'll watch it again, and not having my expectations so high, I will probably enjoy it for the little that it is.

I'm tempted to say that I'm not dissing the film, but I guess I am. Lots of people like the Friday the 13th series and lots of people like Evil Dead Trap. I just didn't think it was very good.

A female reporter comes across a snuff film of sorts, and figures out where it was made (an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere) and decides to take some friends for an investigative outing to explore the site. The usual shenanigans result: people going off by themselves when there is obviously, to us, a killer lurking about, the usual soft sex scenes that make one oh so vulnerable when there is a killer lurking about, and the inevitable gruesome deaths, because everyone is making all the wrong decisions that one could make when there is a killer lurking about.

If you like this sort of B movie slasher thing, then you should check this out. If you are looking for something on the level of Organ, or Tell Me Something, or Suicide Club, then you may want to rent first. Evil Dead Trap has its fans, so I wouldn't let me talk you out of it if I were you. But if Friday the 13th or the Nighmare on Elm Street movies aren't your thing, then neither will this be. Probably.

DO NOT BUY THIS FILM IF: You want a well-made mind bending horror tale; or you don't care what you do or don't do, so you might as well do nothing, which in this case would mean not buying Evil Dead Trap.

RECOMMENDATION: Evil Dead Trap is better than Evil Dead Trap 2, if that's any help. If you like, as I said a milion times already, and I'm getting tired of repeating myself, uh... if you like generic slasher flicks, this may just be quirky enough to lift it above the generic slasher heap.

Oriental horror movies have come along way since the excesses of Men Behind The Sun and this particular movie encompassed a newfound confidence of production that has been in evidence since the late 1980s. Talk show host Nami attempts to halt sliding viewing figures by having more interaction with her viewers. She requests they send her their home movies so she can profile some of their day-to-day lives. However, she is horrified to find that one of her viewers has sent in a tape of what appears to be genuine scenes of torture involving a young woman. Within moments the scene ends and is replaced by footage of a car journey through rural backdrops. It appears to Nami and the rest of her production team that whomever shot them film was trying to indicate to them the exact location of where this crime took place. Intrigued - Nami sets about following the trail and unraveling the mystery.

Director Toshiharu Ikeda is frankly awesome in his selection of shots and set pieces for this movie. A deserted army barracks is the location chosen and is where Nami and friends find themselves at the end of the journey. Toshiharu's pan-shots, roaming the dark broken windows and empty silos, contrast perfectly with the upbeat mood of the television crew as they embark onto what appears to be a mini-adventure. (Why they would not simply take the film to the police in the first place remains unanswered however.)

Despite numerous attempts to discover the room in which the murder took place, the reporters are unsuccessful. Furthermore, they soon begin to suspect that they are being watched from amongst the shadows and grimy walls of the military base. Ikeda manages to create a highly effective sense of unease as the group move from room to room. The audience is left wondering whether a single or multiple assailants are stalking the news team. When the first attacks come, they are truly brutal and eye-catching. Many have claimed that Ikeda took much of his influence from directors such as Craven, Argento and Bava. However, what is contained herein is a whole different level of visceral violence. There is simply nothing around on the Western market that can come close to the fiercely graphic scenes that envelop Ikeda's movie from the outset. Victims are attacked in a variety of ways from seemingly inanimate objects. As the films title would suggest, the group are led into a very real and dangerous trap. Set pieces are geared fully towards the idea of an individual or individuals setting traps for their victims that are then triggered by movement of any kind.

Evil Dead Trap also offers its fair share of twists and turns such as the mystery man who continually appears and seems to want to help the victims. It appears obvious at first that he is involved in the killings. That is until he too is seemingly attacked by whomever is responsible. For the most part, failings are few and far between. Acting is surprisingly solid apart from a few suspect lines. Ikeda makes the wise choice of having most of the bit-part characters say very little. What sets the movie apart from others in its midst however is the way in which it manages to avoid becoming a victim of its own brutal content. It would be easy with a poorer cast, director and script for the audience to simply crave the next grizzly killing. Evil Dead Trap is far from being a 'body count' movie. The deaths of the television crew are pretty irrelevant compared with the terror imbued upon the viewer by as the murderers stalk them. It is the build-up to the crimes, and their seemingly motiveless nature that gives the film its edge.

So what of the ending? Far from give away any plot details, it would be fairer to simply give an overview of the sheer folly that ensues. As mentioned earlier, a fitting conclusion is all-important when producing horror. There needn't be some magical solution that brings together everything that has gone before, there does however need to be a certain amount of fireworks. Evil Dead Trap has possibly the most disappointing ending of any horror movie you are likely to see. This is obviously connected to the level of expectation that proceedings before will have imbued upon the viewer. Ikedo appears to lose his love for plot-subtly in one horrible moment so the ending is a distortion, and a frankly laughable paint-by-numbers conclusion. Far from been too obvious, the script seems to try and squeeze one last gigantic twist from the plot. The result is simply a bloated mess that will leave the viewer skipping back through the DVD in an attempt to find out what exactly it was they have missed. Even worse is the fact that it appears to be obvious what is happening. From the moment Nami decides to forgo her opportunity to escape in order to confront the wrongdoers instead, proceedings go into freefall. It may be harsh to suggest that the scriptwriters were making the ending up as they went along, but this is certainly how it appears on the surface.

Overall, Evil Dead Trap can be recommended as one of the greatest horror thrillers of the late 1980s. For the most part, it is an assured tour-de-force that leaves its impression firmly on the viewer. Its strength lies in its dismal portrayal of the human condition. What it suffers from however is a betrayal of its own agenda. Ikeda seemingly never wanted the violence to count for anything. The power of the murderers came from their lack of a reason. Often, such brutal behaviour is more real and devastating when undertaken in the absence of motive. Ultimately, the film tries to give the viewer a reason for the mayhem - and falls flat on its face in the process.

The movie gets off to an interesting start, probably inspired by Videodrome, as a TV newswoman receives a video tape showing the torture of a young woman. Not only is this sequence interestingly shot, it also features the single nastiest moment of violence against eyes ever.

Unfortunately, the film soon degrades into a routine slasher movie, Italian-style, when the heroine and some colleagues follow the tape's lead to a deserted factory and get bumped off one by one for the next hour. (If you can't spot the "mysterious" killer upon his first appereance, you need glasses.) Finally the narrative, hithertho containing no supernatural elements, comes up with what Jack Turner aptly describes as "a hackneyed stomach-bursting demon baby scenario" which could have been fun if it had been introduced earlier but here merely looks like a cheat. Evil Dead Trap ends up a pointless and disappointing exercise in style.

The country that gave the world Anime, Samurai, and Kaiju films, also has a fascination with all things horror. Horror is bigger than Karaoke in Japan. Though they have been successfully producing quality genre films for decades, their horror output has been generally weak. Japanese filmgoers have relied on imports for years, and distribution companies became wealthy distributing American and European horror films theatrically and on home video. But that all changed when an independent Japanese horror film called SHIRYO NO WANA debuted on the scene. SHIRYO NO WANA was a gory tribute to the works of horror greats, David Cronenberg, Lucio Fulci, and especially Dario Argento. The film sent shock waves rippling through the Japanese film industry and the fan scene as well, and was rechristened with the more exploitative title, EVIL DEAD TRAP for its international distribution (this film has nothing to do with Sam Raimi’s cult trilogy). The film generated several sequels, and proved that the Japanese film industry could produce superior terror flicks of their own. Soon, horror franchises were born, like the GUINEA PIG, RING, and ORGAN series, which solidified Japan’s presence in the world market. Now, Synapse films brings this film that started it all, to the North American DVD market, as only they can.

EVIL DEAD TRAP is directed by the prolific Toshiharu Ikeda, who can be considered the godfather of the modern Japanese horror boom. Ikeda has a large resume in Japanese exploitation films, including XX: BEAUTIFUL BEAST, ANGEL GUTS: RED PORNO, and SCORPION WOMAN PRISONER: DEATH THREAT. The script was written by Takashi Ishii, an accomplished writer/director in his own right. Ishii directed Beat Takeshi in the acclaimed GONIN, and also wrote/directed ORIGINAL SIN and BLACK ANGEL. The lead actress of EVIL DEAD TRAP is Miyuki Ono, who also appeared in Ridley Scott’s BLACK RAIN, an in Japanese genre films like TIME SLIP and BLACK ANGEL.

Nami (Miyuki Ono) is a young hostess of a late night reality TV show, that plays video cassettes sent in by viewers. One evening, a special delivery service drops off a VHS tape addressed to her. She puts it in a VCR, only to discover a videotaped murder appears, in which a naked young woman receives the killing blow to her eyeball. Nami is horrified, but she’s not sure what she is seeing is real. Due to her TV show’s sagging ratings, she convinces her employers and associates to allow her to investigate this incident. From visual cues on the videotape, she deduces the location of the murder—an abandoned ex-military base. She enlists her associates (who are also her friends) and her director, and leads them to this abandoned base in the middle of nowhere. When they arrive, the team of five split up to investigate the interiors of this dilapidated building, and looking for signs of foul play.

On the property surrounding this old military base, Nami meets a mysterious man who claims to be searching for his little brother on these grounds. Things suddenly turn ugly when one of Nami’s coworkers inside the base is skewered with huge spikes. Nami manages to gather the rest of her associates and inform them that they are not alone—but the masked killer makes his presence known. Besides scaring Nami and her friends to near death, the killer causes the floor of the dilapidated military base to give way, trapping them all underneath the complex. The future victims are all separated from one another, and each person must begin their personal trek to escape from this death trap. Nami meets up with that mysterious man, who claims to have been trapped down there himself. He and Nami team up to find a way out of the lower levels of the military base. She witnesses her traveling companion break into seizures and chase after shadows. She finally realizes all is not as it seems—someone or some thing has it in for her.

EVIL DEAD TRAP is a mean-spirited conglomeration of giallo and parasite paranoia. Stylistically, the film draws heavily from Dario Argento (and in the last act, David Cronenberg at his nastiest). There are also the occasional nods to Fulci (such as the eyeball violence). EVIL DEAD TRAP treads the same ground as the giallo, with some notable exceptions. The biggest one is the complete removal of the police procedural angle. Most giallos have heavy reliance of the police force or an investigator to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Scriptwriter Takashi Ishii totally removes the expected law enforcement element from EVIL DEAD TRAP and instead just drops bits and pieces of information on the audience from the various characters. As is common to most Japanese genre films (like TETSUO and ORGAN), there is not always a logical explanation for everything. Some things just happen, and leaves the viewer to conclude the meaning on their own.

Director Ikeda studied his mentors well, because this whole film looks like Argento and his crew flew to Japan to direct it. But Ikeda proves his filmmaking skills are just as good. Right from the very beginning where the first murder takes place (via skewered eyeball), Ikeda establishes a sense of urgency that flows throughout the entire film, without letting up. The tension and sense of dread is constant, until the outrageous climax that whacks the viewer over the head. Though the narrative contains a logical flow throughout most of the movie, the extended ending totally throws reality out the window—though this tends to strip the tension away from these gruesome final moments. Ikeda serves it all up with some stylish visuals and backlighting right out of SUSPIRIA or INFERNO. Ikeda uses some perspective camera tricks to make the viewer wonder if the murders are the work of a disturbed killer, or some supernatural force. Then, there is the aforementioned climax, where the filmmakers really throw a curve ball into the mix—and we get thrust deep into Cronenberg country. Through it all, Ikeda maintains a grim atmosphere of brutality, isolation, and surrealism.

The acting is very good by Miyuki Ono and the other Japanese actresses. Obviously a lot is lost in the translation, but the players convey their lines and emotions with more conviction than stateside TV actresses. There is a rape scene that is very effecting—this is attributable to the performances of the players (don’t worry, the rapist gets his comeuppance). The cast also put a lot of emotion into their painful death scenes. The realistic gore effects are very believable on this cadre of actors and actresses, who wince in pain as the dirty deeds are committed. The look in their eyes will linger on your subconscience for days.

SIGHT
EVIL DEAD TRAP is presented in the widescreen framing of 1.85.1. Considering the low budget origins of the film, the transfer is very well rendered. The print used is free from damage and blemishes; only the expected grain is readily apparent. The image is sharp and bright and the contrast level is perfectly balanced. The black level is deep, and the picture has superior shadow detail. Ikeda fixates the camera lens on the moody interiors of the abandoned building creating a sense of isolation and claustrophobia. He also employs some soft blue and yellow backlighting, which makes these drab interiors something to behold. Combined with the use of fog and smoke, the lighting produces some residual atmospheric visuals you won’t soon forget. Make-up effects wizard Shinichi Wakasa’s brutal gore setpieces are something to behold, and contribute to the surreal tone of EVIL DEAD TRAP. His disturbing work reminds us of Sergio Stivaletti. There are no DVD mastering flaws such as bleeding, chroma noise, edge enhancement or compression artifacts. EVIL DEAD TRAP may not be a film of much substance, but it is high on style, and thus dependent on it’s widescreen compositions. Synapse’s DVD transfer is surely the best the film has ever looked.

SOUND
Synapse’s DVD packaging states that the audio is Dolby Digital Mono. But it turns out that this is a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix (and a nice one, too)! The soundfield is very clear and natural, with a lot of low-end activity. EVIL DEAD TRAP is a film that depends on sound as much as it does visuals. We did not detect any hiss, distortion, or background noise. The clean Japanese dialog emanates from the center channel. The sound field comes alive with the sound of screams, footsteps, gunshots, and gore effects. That’s right, every time there is a killing, the soundfield resonates with a bone-crunching sound of metal meeting flesh (the foley guys must have had a field day with this one). The interior of the dilapidated army base makes all kind of noises, including collapsing walls and floors, electrical shorts, blowing winds, slamming doors, etc. Just as the Ikeda’s stylish visuals take their cues from Argento, composer Tomohiko Kira bases his music on that of Fabio (THE BEYOND) Frizzi. The music consists mainly of synthesizer strains repeating themselves over and over. And Kira uses a couple variations of these themes. Though they serve their purpose and successfully mimic the tone of Euro-horror epics, the music is played a little too much and the same themes play over and over and get on your nerves before EVIL DEAD TRAP is over. Since we were expecting mono sound, Synapse’s DVD gets high marks for the rich stereo sound mix.

EXTRAS
The only real extra on this DVD is the audio commentary with Toshiharu Ikeda and special effects coordinator Shinichi Wakasa. They both have thick Japanese accents, and don’t speak English too well, but for patient commentary enthusiasts, there is some really funny anecdotes (along with plenty of unintentional humor). They both discuss the effects scenes and the cinematography. There is also a theatrical trailer (FF, DD 2.0, 1:28).

CONCLUSION
Even though EVIL DEAD TRAP is not the most original exercise in horror and suspense to come down the pike, it is still the best modern giallo of the last 15 years. As a giallo, it is even more traditional than Argento’s films of the 1990’s. EVIL DEAD TRAP is successful because it is nasty and disturbing—something that American films (with the exception of SEVEN) just cannot achieve. Director Ikeda infuses the production with plenty of style, and shows his artistic grasp of filmmaking. His techniques should be studied by the generic filmmakers of Hollywood. Synapse Films long-delayed DVD proves to be worth the wait, with a very good transfer and a surprisingly strong audio experience. This is the second release in their Asian Cult Cinema collection, and we anxiously await the third DVD. The only thing this DVD is missing is a suitable dub track, so we can use this DVD to convert SCREAM fans to the intricacies of Asian Cult Cinema; this would be the perfect film to turn American horror fans onto the pleasures of the Far East.

When late-night talk show host Nami (Miyuki Ono: Black Rain, The Black Angel) receives a videotape showing a woman being brutally murdered, along with directions on how to get to the scene of the crime, she loads up her crew (comprised of three other women and a guy) and sets out to discover what's really going on. Nami and crew arrive at a deserted warehouse, and while exploring, are stalked by a masked killer.

Director Toshiharu Ikeda (Evil Dead Trap 3, Angel Guts: Red Porno) gives us a stylish film that shows a lot of Argento influence in the cinematography, the set-pieces, etc. From the film's opening sequence all the way through to the climax, there's a palpable sense of dread throughout this movie. Much like Wes Craven’s Scream (yeah, I bet Scream was one of the last movies you expected to see mentioned in a review of a Japanese exploitation flick, eh?), Evil Dead Trap opens with an incredibly brutal sequence—the woman on tape being tortured and dismembered—that sets the tone for the rest of the film by raising the tension to a fever pitch. However, like Craven’s film, the rest of Evil Dead Trap has a hard time living up to this opening sequence. That’s not to say the film drops its brutal approach (although Scream did after that opening sequence for the most part), but it is to say that Ikeda and company have a hard time following up such disturbing imagery with anything as equally gruesome.

Acting-wise, the film isn’t anything special. Miyuki Ono is decent, as is the man who plays the killer (and you’ll have to forgive me for not telling you who he is—there’s almost no cast information about this film online). Everyone else is the standard ‘spam-in-a-cabin’ (or, in this case, ‘spam-in-an-abandoned-warehouse’) type of character—which basically means they’re marked for an extremely gruesome and brutal death at the hands of our maniacal slasher. If anything can be said about these performances, I suppose you could give them credit for conveying the look of real suffering as they’re skewered and sliced into so many pieces, but that’s about it.

The film itself starts out strongly, and remains interesting until the climax, where it then takes a veer out of slasher territory and into Japanese monster movie country. The first two and a half acts are essentially structured like a giallo (see my review of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage for a more detailed discussion of the gialli)—there’s little actual mystery as to who our psychopath is, but we’re never really sure of the motivation. And, to Ikeda’s credit, he does make us wonder on several occasions whether the killer is actually human, or some supernatural presence. Keeping with the giallo tone, the killer appears to be mentally unbalanced as well (ok... it’s probably a safe bet to say that anyone who films themselves cutting up a young woman is mentally unbalanced, but this is a horror flick, and that kind of unbalance almost doesn’t count)—repeatedly talking to a videotape and someone who doesn’t appear to be in the room.

Still, even though there’s only a minimal amount of actual mystery in the film, Ikeda does manage to throw us one last curveball during the (overlong) climax sequence. It’s this curveball that essentially makes this a 4 star movie as opposed to a 5 star classic. The ending is absurd, to say the least, and just feels wrong for this kind of film—it sucks the wind right out of the film’s sails and had this viewer looking at the screen saying ‘huh’?

Yet even though Evil Dead Trap drops the ball at the climax, it’s still good enough to be one of my all time favorite slasher flicks, mainly because it’s so damn brutal. This is a mean-spirited little film in almost every way, and it makes American slashers like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street look like Romper Room in comparison. I’m not an expert on Japanese exploitation cinema, but I have to say, based on the few films I’ve seen, that the Japanese take their onscreen carnage more seriously than any other country in the world. This film features the aforementioned dismemberment (complete with a segment of brutal eye violence that rivals the work of Lucio Fulci), a woman skewered on sharp blades thrust up through floor, another woman who meets a grizzly death at the hands of a Rube Goldberg-esque death contraption (opening a door throws it all into motion), a fairly graphic (and overlong) rape scene, and one of the most gruesome machete murders of all time (although, I still think the one Bava used in Bay of Blood is the best). Simply put, gore fans will want to own this film—and everyone else will most likely be put off by the grue.

In the end, Evil Dead Trap is a fine addition to the slasher canon. Toshiharu Ikeda has crafted a disturbingly violent little film with a mean streak a mile wide. However, it rises above many of its exploitation film brethren because it’s shot in a manner that actually shows some style and understanding of what constitutes good filmmaking. Yes, it cribs from Argento in various places (particularly in the construction of its set-pieces—which are basically the film’s calling card), but it often tends to come across more as homage than theft. The ending is a major letdown, but even in spite of that, the film has a real sense of menace running throughout it—and that tension at least helps to counterbalance the weak climax. Evil Dead Trap isn’t for everyone, but if you’re into hardcore exploitation, Japanese horror cinema, or just a gorehound looking for something a little more daring than Urban Legends, then this film is well worth tracking down.

COMMENTS
I never really heard about this movie until it was mentioned somewhere on my board and then I was kindly offered a chance to view it. I didn't expect much from it and so I wasn't surprised that I didn't like it as much as I could have. Don't let the name fool you; it has nothing to do with the Evil Dead trilogy. This is a japanese horror film with english subtitles.

This is a very strange movie. A lot of scenes just didn't make sense and I think that's why I gave it a 5-rating. It just had too many plot holes and just got silly towards the end. First you think it's a slasher film, but then all of a sudden it turns supernatural on you. I think the movie has an identity crisis where it doesn't know if it's a slasher of a supernatural flick. It's good to mix the two sometimes, but I dont think it felt too well in this movie, because it just made things confusing.

What I did like about the movie was the death scenes. They were very innovative and painful looking. Gotta love that. As for gore, it had a moderate amount, except at the end when things really got weird.

The acting was okay and so was the directing. There weren't any real scary scenes, which dissapointed me. I've seen a lot of creepy japanese horror films and I was hoping this would be one of them. I guess not.

OVERALL
Not as good as other japanese horror films. Confusing, but keeps you a bit interested. Check this movie if you're into strange flicks.

Review: I heard that "Evil Dead Trap" was one of a kind. I also heard that this film is the golden gem of the slasher-gore films (which are just about as common in Japan as the amount of crabs on a prostitute hustling outside a seafood restaurant) (ooh, got you there didn't I? I took you this direction and then BAM, it was really the other direction). So I sit down with what is known to be as a landmark in the slasher-gore films. And oh my, what an experience it was.

Really, there's not much to expect from a slasher-gore flick. The whole system on which the quality is valued is by how creative and gorey the deaths are, and not the intricate and detailed plot that we have all grown to love in slasher-gore films (nudge nudge, sarcasm). Maybe it was anticipation, I don't know, but for some reason I had this preconceived notion that this film was going to be spectacular in all areas including the plot. Sadly the plot is so ridiculously ludicrous that it's laughable. Each character's motives are just plain pointless. You got your horny couple that has their steamy sex scene. You got the one character who's got no real purpose in the film but to maybe be in a sex scene and then die. Strangely though, the acting is pretty stellar for a film like this. But stellar acting can't save a crappy story. Since when did reporters NOT submit videos of a woman getting tortured to death to the cops? Not only this, but the whole team decides to go "Oh hey, no worries, it's probably some prank! If we find the guy, it'll be fun. IN FACT, It'll be funny! Let's do it!" Then of course, they all scream and run around like crazy kids that forgot to take their Ritalin medicine. And instead of being chased around by their mommy's, they're chased around by a deranged psycho killer! OH NO!

Perhaps I'm too harsh on the story. I'm trying to compare this film to the likes of "Battle Royale", but both you and I know that's an intentional fallacy. So I'll take this movie for what it is, a slasher-gore film. Boy oh boy does it get the job done. I'll admit, even though the story was stupid, I was disturbed by the images in this film. There were just those moments in this film that made you cringe. The director gets a standing ovation for his unique camera work and shots, and for his brilliant usage of bullet-time sweeps before it was even know as bullet-time. Oh man, the images in this film just DISTURBED. For example, even though the first eye penetration looked ridiculously fake, I couldn't help but twitch. As for the deaths themselves, oohhh. If you're a gore-hound, then this is like ridiculously good cheesecake in your stomach. Each death is elaborate and creative as hell. I don't want to ruin anything because in between the redundant dialogue and pointless plot development, I was in 'awe'. The one death that will make a lasting impression in my mind is the photographer's death. It's beautiful. Each death is a beautifully orchestrated brutal murder! Basically what I'm saying here is, the evil dead traps in "Evil Dead Trap" make up for the ridiculously plot.

You'll be treated to gore goodness for the beginning of the film, but one problem....MOST OF THE CAST DIES IN THE BEGINNING! Then the "deep and interesting" plot kicks in. I don't know, but I personally lost interest during the un-killing haitus. Luckily, it grabbed my attention right away with the photographer's death! But then I lost it again when the SURPRISE TWSIT ending was revealed. Once again, the ridiculousl-ness of the story was just laughable. But I guess the ridiculous factor had one good effect, the last frame of the film is so terribly disgusting and bad that you can't help but love it. "Evil Dead Trap" ultimately delivers what it promises, but keep in mind, most slasher-gore films don't promise much. So kids, TAKE OUT YOUR SLASHER-GORE CHECKLIST KIDS!

• Hot Asian chicks with 80's hairstyles? CHECK!
• Crazy lunatic killer who's identity stays a mystery until the end? CHECK!
• Able to find the identity of the killer within first 20 minutes? CHECK!
• Deaths that are eligible to be described as "tiznight"? CHECK!
• Stupid victims that die in bloody disgusting ways? CHECK!
• Boobs? Lots of boobs? Maybe a little sex? CHECK!
• Disturbing images that make you afraid to walk down long dark hallways late at night? CHECK!
• A really retarded and pointless plot? CHECK!
• A killer fetus? CHECK!

Nami, a talk show hostess, tells her audience to send in home videos to profile on her late night program. Soon, she receives an anonymous videotape in the mail...a tape containing terrifying imagery. She watches in horror as an unseen filmmaker follows a route to an abandoned factory...and brutally tortures and kills a woman on camera. A camera crew is assembled and they set off to follow the videotape’s trail to the foreboding location. What they find there is a horror beyond imagination! There is someone...or something...in the mysterious building. Something waiting in the shadows to torture and murder them one by one...

With Evil Dead Trap, director Toshiharu Ikeda has created a horrifying masterpiece of Japanese cinema. The kinetic visual style is reminiscent of Dario Argento (Suspiria), David Cronenberg (eXistenZ) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) and it builds with genuine suspense and terror. Written by Takashi Ishii (Gonin 1 & 2), Evil Dead Trap was so popular it spawned many sequels and was a hit in theatres. This film has a huge cult following and is sure to please any serious horror film fan!

Evil Dead Trap was directed by the prolific exploitation film-maker Ikeda Toshiharu(XX:Beautiful Beast, Angel Guts: Red Porno, Scorpion Woman Prisoner: Death Threat). He has been quoted as saying that he doesn't enjoy horror films. "...I'm the guy sitting way back in the theatre, scrunched down deep in the seat". Such an attitude comes across as nothing less than mind-boggling when faced with the extreme scenes in this, his most famous piece of work.

The virtually plotless film kicks off by introducing the protagonist Tsuchiya Nami (Ono Miyuki, who viewers might recognise from Ridley Scott's Black Rain), host of a late night television programme called "Late Night With Nami" (designed especially for those of you who can't sleep). Interestingly, screenwriter Ishii Takashi, an accomplished writer/director in his own right (Gonin, Original Sin, Black Angel) always features a character called Nami in his scripts as a kind of personal signature. Nami makes a request for interesting mondo-style home videos to screen on the show. We cut to someone working on a video whose mother Nami seems to resemble. She receives the finished tape in the mail. It shows the route to a remote industrial looking location then cuts to the shocking murder of a bound young woman, her demise shown in graphic and grisly detail. This footage contains one of the most realistic eyeball gougings outside of Fulci's Zombie. At the end of the video Nami's face is substituted for that of the victim, making the grim footage all the more disturbing for her. She has received videos like this before but something about this apparent snuff video strikes her as genuine and she asks her boss for permission to investigate further, hoping that by proving the tape is the genuine article she can boost the flagging ratings for her show.

She sets out with four of her colleagues, three women and a solitary male, make-up woman Rei (adult film star Kobayashi Hitomi), sound engineer Masako, scriptwriter Rya (another adult film star Katsuragi Fumi), and assistant director Kondou. Together they piece together the visual clues found in the video to trace a path to the spooky location revealed by the tape. They arrive at a deserted American military base, and what a fantastic location for a horror movie this proves to be: crumbling, eerie, desolate, and one that Ikeda makes full use of. In an interview in Asian Cult Cinema Ikeda revealed the reason for this choice of location: "The military base where everybody gets killed--it's an old American military base. I picked this location because I wanted to instantly create an aura of fear in the audience. You see, Japanese people are afraid of Americans. It's a fear that goes back to the war..."

Evidently Nami and her friends are expected because when Nami touches the lock on the gate of the base it falls open at the merest touch. They split into groups of two, with Nami going off alone, and begin to search the vast complex for evidence of the murder they believe to have been committed there. Nami's first inkling of the sinister fate that awaits her and her friends comes when she finds a dead bird being eaten by insects, one of the symbols of death that Ikeda uses to cue the fate of his characters.

Nami meets a stranger in the base who claims to be searching for his brother, Hideki, evidently the person behind the video Nami and her colleagues are investigating. Because of the lack of alternative suspects the identity of the mysterious stranger is not hard to guess, though Ikeda does try to allay our suspicions with his trademarked Sam Raimi "shakeycam" shots that lead us to believe that some kind of supernatural force might be responsible for the killings. The stranger warns her that the base is not a playground, but in fact that's exactly what it is: the playground of an evil and murderous child.

The proceedings are interrupted by a sex scene between Kondou and Rei that seems to have strayed into the film from any number of teen slasher movies. Actresses from adult films were cast in the movie to facilitate the performance of such nude scenes. The expected deaths of the characters as a result of their carnal activity fails to materialise, however, during the sexual act itself. Rei hears a noise and goes to investigate. Another influence strays in here with a scene lifted directly from Argento's Suspiria. Maggots fall from the ceiling into Rei's hair, symbolising the presence of death. A cupboard door falls open and the body of the girl from the video tumbles out. Rei backs away in terror, only to be skewered by huge spikes that erupt from floor and walls in a way that defies conventional logic, like the majority of the murder scenes in the film, but that nevertheless works within the peculiar, nightmarish scenario of the film, and packs a terrific punch.

Elsewhere in the base a man in a pit with a gag in his mouth struggles to escape from his captivity but is prevented from doing so by a man dressed in a rain slicker and military garb, his face masked by camouflage material that allows only his eyes to show through. The man from the pit is later involved in a rape scene--so typical of Japanese horror movies--that gives us a little more important information about the schizoid killer, his captor.

The members of Nami's group begin to fall victim to the killer in a series of fiendish booby traps, the highlight of which is undoubtedly the death by swinging blade of Masako which Nami unwittingly triggers. Nami escapes, seemingly at the whim of the killer, and meets up with the mysterious stranger once more. He leads her to an underground tunnel that leads out of the base. However, when the man turns back to search for his brother, Nami decides that she also must return to find out who amongst her friends has survived and who is responsible for the murders, a decision that will strike most viewers as nonsensical but that again fits in with the slasher conventions of the story.

Nami eventually finds the killer's lair. Though there are no answers offered to the killer's motives one tantalising glimpse of his inner world is offered by Nami's discovery of a photograph, presumably of the killer as a child with his mother. The mother's image has been stuck with pins.

What follows is for many people the most contentious part of the movie, when it moves fromthe semi-realistic slasher genre into the arena of the full-blown supernatural. In scenes seemingly inspired by the body-horror of David Cronenberg we finally meet Hideki in a way that will leave most viewers reeling in disbelief as the killer literally gives birth to his split-personality. But the film's protracted climax does not end there. There is still a final, and very satisfying twist, to come.

Grotesque children are no strangers to the horror genre, but the figure of the monstrous child apparently has a different meaning and resonance for the people of Japan. In Takashi Ishii's original script Hideki was not a baby at all but a creature resembling something like a baby Godzilla. Director Ikeda decided this approach did not work, so the original creature footage was scrapped. Ikeda came up with the idea of the birth of the monstrous child. To quote the director: "Obviously baby Hideki is real--at least on the horror film level--in the supernatural sense... It is an extension...or a birth of Honma's other self. But for me, he's a symbol of evil and unbridled lust. In Japan--unlike the United States--a baby is not the symbol of innocence. Rather, a baby is the embodiment of dark emotions, of immaturity gone wild. It may be a difficult concept for an American audience to grasp, but I was trying to create this infantile, wildly kinetic world of humankind gone mad. The baby is the dark side of man. The sinister quality of the movie germinates from this unnatural birth of Hideki".

The characters are inevitably little more than ciphers in a film like this but the cast acquit themselves well within the confines of what they are given to do.

I have to say that I was very disappointed with Evil Dead Trap on my initial viewing. This probably had much to do with the considerable hype the film has generated over the years in its progress to becoming arguably the best known Japanese horror movie. Repeated viewings have shown me what a superlative piece of work it is, easily comparable with the best of Argento. The pace is unrelenting and director Ikeda utilises a variety of cinematic techniques, including black and white footage, endless pans along inanimate objects a la Argento, rapid cuts and backlit colour schemes straight out of Suspiria, to keep the screw of tension wound to its ultimate pitch. Western viewers may be a little disorientated by the film's apparent illogicality, but this is a trait typical of Japanese horror (and is especially evident in the sequel to Evil Dead Trap, Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki (1991)), and should not be used to dismiss the film out of hand. Enter into Ikeda's world of terror and ultimately you will be amply rewarded. This is one film that is definitely not to be missed.