Evil Dead Trap (1988)

A TV station employee takes a camera crew out to an abandoned factory to investigate a purported snuff film that was made there, only to end up running for her life when a small, fetus-like creature murders her crew.

Director:

Toshiharu Ikeda

Writer:

Takashi Ishii

Stars:

Miyuki Ono, Aya Katsuragi, Hitomi Kobayashi

Cast

Cast overview:
Miyuki Ono	...	Nami Tsuchiya
Aya Katsuragi	...	Masako Abe
Hitomi Kobayashi	...	Rei Sugiura
Eriko Nakagawa	...	Rie Kawamura
Masahiko Abe	...	Akio Kondô
Hiroshi Shimizu
Kyôko Hashimoto
Yûko Maehara
Yûko Suwano
Mari Shimizu	...	Hideki (voice)
Noboru Mitani	...	Detective
Terumi Niki	...	Haha no Koe (voice)
Shinsuke Shimada	...	TV Producer
Yûji Honma	...	Daisuke Muraki

Storyline

Nami hosts a late night home video program. She receives a tape which appears to be a real snuff film. She and her crew investigate the location where she meets a man looking for his brother who warns her to stay away. As she gets closer to the truth, she and her friends are subjected to a brutal nightmare.

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Plot Keywords:

killing an animal | topless female nudity | head injury | hand injury | leg injury | 

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Genres:

Horror

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

14 May 1988 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Evil Dead Trap

Company Credits

Production Co:

Directors Company,Japan Home Video (JHV)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Japanese Porn Stars were used in the filming of this movie

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Goofs

When the blade swings down into the side of Mako's face, the blood clearly flows down from the top of the blade, and not from her face.

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Alternate Versions

UK version is cut by 8 seconds to remove closeup shots of a crucified woman's breasts being cut with a knife.

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Connections

Followed by Chigireta ai no satsujin (1993)

User Reviews

Relentlessly gory Japanese splatter

After seeing The Evil Dead Trap, I'm not surprised at all that it has a rather strong cult following; as despite the fact that the plot is rather ludicrous and the film isn't particularly well thought out, it makes up for these problems with a plethora of special effects and a bucket of gore; and the result is a brilliantly fun piece of Japanese horror. The influence for this film is clearly far reaching, but the most obvious is probably the Cronenberg masterpiece Videodrome, though the oeuvre of Lucio Fulci seems to be an influence and of course the English title is a clear rip-off of a very popular early eighties horror film. The plot focuses on a late night reality TV show hosted a young lady named Nami. The show receives a videotape that includes apparently real snuff tape footage. This leads the team to go and track down the origin of the tape, and they arrive at an old warehouse. After gaining access to the facility, it's not long before the group begin being picked off by an unseen assailant.

The film could easily be seen as a slasher flick, but actually it's much more ambitious than that. The snuff footage at the beginning of the film sets the tone for the rest of it; the violence is extreme, but also rather realistic and that is carried on throughout. One of my favourite things about it was undoubtedly the atmosphere; director Toshiharu Ikeda makes best use of the location and the fact that the central characters are isolated from the outside world. The violence is often shown and extreme and this is what makes the film entertaining. It's also rather inventive and the film offers much more than merely another man with a knife. The problems regarding the plotting and character are somewhat condemning; I do feel that if a bit more time and attention were given to these areas then the film could easily have been a masterpiece. But even so, if you want a good gorefest then you really can't do better than this film! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to all horror fans.