User Reviews

It's true that Evil Dead Trap director Toshiharu Ikeda blatantly rips off Italian genre greats Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci for this outrageous piece of late 80s slasher craziness, but he does it with such aplomb that only the most sour of horror purists would bother screaming 'plagiarist'. Let's face it, how often do you get to see what the bastard offspring of a giallo and a Japanese splatter pic would look like? I sure can't think of any other films that provide that opportunity.

Ikeda's movie begins with TV presenter Nami (Miyuki Ono), the host of a late night home-video show, receiving a tape through the post which appears to show real footage of women being tortured and then killed (be prepared for a particularly nasty Fulci-style eye slicing during the screening of this tape). Rather than immediately contact the police like any normal person would do after receiving a snuff movie in the mail, intrepid Nami seizes the chance to prove her worth as an investigative reporter and decides to locate where the video was made.

Accompanied by her equally dumb crew (four women plus one horny guy to allow for the obligatory sex scene), Nami follows visual clues on the tape, ultimately arriving at the site of a derelict factory where a masked killer waits patiently for the group to (in time-honoured slasher fashion) split up and investigate the building.

After several elaborate death scenes, including a juicy impalement on metal spikes and a splattery machete-in-the-head booby trap, only Nami is left alive. Help is seemingly at hand, however, in the form of enigmatic stranger Daisuke, who knows of a subterranean passageway that leads to safety.

So far, so predictable, but in the film's final act, Ikeda stops following the recognised slasher rules and suddenly enters Cronenbergian territory, introducing his audience to Hideke, the murderous parasitic child with telekinetic powers that lives inside the body of Daisuke! At this point, any semblance of logic and predictability vanishes, and madness reigns: Hideke makes fireworks explode around Nami as she tries to escape, the little fellow erupts from his brother's body to attack Nami in person, and Daisuke attempts to destroy the creature by forcing it back into his torso and setting himself on fire.

This combination of bloody stalk and slash and bonkers biological horror proves to be quite irresistible, and although Ikeda definitely isn't on a par with Argento, the director he attempts to emulate the closest (just check out the primary coloured lighting and Goblinesque score), Evil Dead Trap does manage to be solid entertainment from start to finish.

Toshiharu Ikeda's "Evil Dead Trap" seems to start out as an effective, ultra-violent slasher. One can clearly see where the Saw franchise may've gotten a few ideas. But, once most of the victims have been eliminated, this film takes a Mondo Bizarro turn and definitely left this viewer's jaw dropping a loud thud to the floor. Television station late night talk show host is sent what appears to be a snuff video recording where a female victim is mutilated by a knife blade, ripping her flesh, stabbing into her eyeball. Nami Tsuchiya(Miyuki Ono)wishes to pursue the one responsible(..she doesn't take the recording as serious, actually making funny to her director about boosting rating if she were killed by the psycho on assignment), who left a way of travel on the recording to an abandoned military installation, fallen to ruin, but her employers haven't the budget to fund such an expedition. So Nami's television crew, opt to join her, not knowing that a serial killer lies in wait, ready to butcher them in various ways, setting traps they'll unfortunately walk into. Nami meets a mysterious, handsome, quietly enigmatic man who tells her to be careful as he pursues his brother Hideki. This man knows more than he's telling and will meet up with Nami once again, after she loses her friends, who fall to the killer one by one. The major twist which is certain to floor a few folks if they haven't read up on this film is exactly who Hideki really is and how *he* will effect her life forever.

As I mentioned at the very start, Ikeda sets up the film following the usual patterns well established in the slasher genre. A group of young adults enter into the hunting ground of a hidden psychopath, dying in gruesome ways. The first to die had just finished having sex with her boyfriend, who was the show's assistant director. Eventually, the characters separate, converge together, then walk into traps set by the killer. Like in numerous slashers, dead bodies surprise victims who only realize just what their up against after witnessing them. Wooden spikes stab through a female victim. One female victim, who actually makes it out of the warehouse, is attacked by the killer's *servant*, who subsequently sexually molests her while gripping her throat, strangling her just enough to keep her at bay as he forces himself in her as she struggles mightily to escape. Before he's executed with a metal pike rammed through his face and out his mouth, this deviant informs her(..but, more importantly, us)that the *two* killers are actually one. She hopes to free herself, but is dragged over the roof of the company van by a wire noose slamming head-first to pavement. Another is bound by tape, as Nami trips a wire which sends a swinging blade into the side of her face. But, these elaborate death sequences(..including the opening snuff kill which certainly informs the viewer what you're up against)pale in comparison with Nami's introduction and on-going battle with Hideki. That is certainly the show-stopping finale(..including what happens to Nami at the very end when she believes she had finally rid herself of Hideki forever)I never saw coming. The very definition of "the rug being swept out from under you." For the exception of Ono and her mysterious *assistant*, the rest of the cast(..like in your common slasher movie)are disposable victims.

Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda (Sex Hunter) from a script by Takashi Ishii (the Angel Guts series), the title of this in Japanese translates as Trap of The Dead Spirits.

The co-star was a bigger name than any of the stars in this movie. Rei Sugiura is one of the most important Japanese AV (Adult Video) idols of all time. Her parent company, Japan Home Video (JHV) (she was part of their AV label Alice Japan) financed the film as a vehicle for her, but Ikeda was unsure if she could act. That's why Miyuki Ono has the lead, playing Nami Tsuchiya, who hosts the TV show Late Night With Nami, which is all about viewers sending in their strange home videos. When one is a snuff film, she smells a story and her team soon heads to an abandoned factory to get the story.

That tape - addressed to her and for those that can't sleep - features a woman being murdered (and her eye being slashed out, betraying the influence of Lucio Fulci on Ishii). While the rest of her crew wanders the factory - which really means have sex - a strange man warns her to leave.

After that, the movie lives up to its title, as a series of traps take out the crewmembers one by one, in incredibly inventive ways, often lit ala Bava and feeling like Argento*. I don't say that in a negative way. I mean it as a high compliment. There's also a high gore content, as this is 1988 Japan, and if you're turned off by people being shot in the back of the head with arrows that come right out of their mouth, then this is not the movie for you.

Also, if you're the kind of person that demands that your slashers are rooted in reality, you're going to love this movie until the last part, when it decides to stop being a slasher and become pure weirdness, with cojoined and unknown twins, dream sequences and a twist ending that sprays blood all over the place.

You know how fusion cooking combines wildly disparate food cultures? Evil Dead Trap is that, but for gore-drenched giallo slasher hybrids. I loved every drippy, chewy and fatty bite.

*Sounding, too. You'd swear this movie had the soundtrack of a 1980's Italian horror movie.

Toshiharu Ikeda's 'Evil Dead Trap,' which was written by Takashi Ishii, who would go on to direct the great Yakuza flick 'Gonin' (1995) and the arty rape revenge 'Freeze Me' (2000), has the set-up of Nami being the presenter of the TV show 'Late Night With Nami.' She requests viewers send in video's to play, and receives one hell of a submission; David Cronenberg's 'Videodrome' (1983) comes to mind as a woman is seen being tortured and ultimately murdered, edited in such a way that it is meant to be Nami. The power of montage. When discussing whether they should use the video on their program, a producer says "if we give attention to it, we'd only be encouraging sick behaviour." Indeed…

Regardless, Nami is given 'unofficial' approval to go and investigate. The video leaves clues as to how to find the scene of the murder, and the girls and their chaperon too easily discover a deserted military base that doesn't appear on any maps. The killer is clearly waiting for them. Black and white style Sam Raimi 'Evil Dead' style tracking shots indicate an evil presence, and the obvious source of the film's title.

As is the logic with these exercises, they break up into small groups; Rei goes with the male in the group, Kondou. Rei observes the buildings have the appearance that "everyone suddenly left without warning." Masako takes pictures and goes with Rya, who is the most likely 'final girl' as she wears pink. 'Sensibly' Nami goes off exploring by herself.

The film starts off visually with the daylight horrors of Dario Argento's 'Tenebre,' and Nami makes a point of saying it's 1pm when they arrive. Rei finds maggots falling from the ceiling straight out of Argento's 'Suspiria,' and being the first to have sex, is also the first to die. Rya, being a sensible 'final girl,' suggests they should leave after Nami lets on that she thinks the video was an 'invitation' to them.

Masako, being a photographer, cleverly dies by camera flash (and knife), dispatched by a suitably hooded 'Giallo' figure as the film quickly goes about disposing of the cast. However, Rya isn't a 'final girl' after all, on the verge of escape a killer (not faceless at all), states he prefers his victims to die slowly and makes her endure a prolonged rape where he goes on at length about his girlfriend who had her eyes cut out by these 'evil two who are one.' Rya doesn't die, she fights back, is about to die, then the rapist is killed and bleeds all over her… then she walks into a noose, and still THAT isn't what kills her, she struggles, falls over and breaks her neck. It is a noteworthy sequence as is doesn't drive the narrative but exists for its own nastiness. The film then veers off the slasher film trajectory and moves into a stranger land indeed; one that shows the influence of such disparate films as Frank Henenlotter's 'Basket Case' (1982), as well as Ridley Scott's 'Alien' (1979).

"Hideki, it's time for you to go to sleep. You have school tomorrow. Not again! You went out. You're like a kite with a broken string."

The killer removes his mask, in a very 'un-Giallo' move, however then enters a 'Giallo' yellow room. He has cat like whiskers painted on his cheeks, reflecting Argento's cat obsession. In the final act, the basic elements of fire and water take over as all bets are off regarding narrative logic, as celebrity obsession meets with umbilicus cords and floating fetus'!

The long takes, tricky camera angles and less is more editing are influenced by Argento's stylized baroque cinema, and the music is clearly influenced by 'Deep Red.' Composer Tomohiko Kira is lead guitarist in the group 'Zabadak,' who took their name from the song by 'Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich,' whose song 'Hold Tight' features in Quentin Tarantino's episode of 'Grindhouse' (2007), which has a few Argento references of its own. An Asian film with no Asian reference points, but clearly familiar with the work of Argento. It somewhat joylessly riffs on the Argento style, and opened the door for the J-Horror tsunami to come that use atmosphere, more than the shock tactics of 'Evil Dead Trap.'

EVIL DEAD TRAP is a pretty solid J-horror film with several cool elements. It starts to taper off and get kind of dull at the end, but overall a pretty strong film...

EVIL DEAD TRAP starts off with Nami, a late-night TV show host, receiving a strange package in the mail. She opens it up, and it turns out to be a VCR tape. She pops it in and watches what appears to be a pretty rough snuff film of a chick getting cut up and poked in the eye with a knife (in true graphic "Fulci" fashion...). The "killer" filmed the drive to the location where the "snuff-film" was made, so Nami, smelling a hot story, packs up her film crew and heads out to check it out. Of course there are some strange goings-on at the abandoned facility where the snuff-film was shot, and the crew members start getting picked off one-by-one in pretty gruesome fashion. This leads up to the finale of Nami "unmasking" the killer and the completely off-the-wall ending...

All-in-all, EVIL DEAD TRAP is a good film. The story is interesting, there are some novel gore scenes, and the photography, acting, and locations are all very good. The only real problem I had is with the pacing, which started off pretty hot and heavy, and slowed down noticeably in the second half. I actually fell asleep twice trying to watch this film - but that could have been the bourbon...The ending was also completely strange and unexpected - but anyone who watches a lot of this type of J-horror won't be too surprised by that fact. It seems that these films can never have a straight story-line, that they all have to feature some sort of super-natural or just super-strange element to make them work, and although the eyeball scene was rough and there were a few other notable kill scenes, I personally was hoping for a little more of the red-stuff...Definitely recommended for anyone who likes more underground J-horror. 8/10

Dead Trap aka Shiryo no wana (1988) Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda Credited cast: Miyuki Ono and others

Evil Dead Trap is a film that I knew was going to be brutal and therefore kept on the shelf until the missus was sufficiently lulled into a false sense of drunken security before I bunged it onto the DVD player, only to be faced by the image of a crocodile eating a pigeon. Thanks! Good way to start a film. I suppose in the end it was Japanese though.

Said biased battle betwixt crocodile and pigeon appears on a Japanese TV show presented by Namu (I think), who like to get her viewers to send videos in. One video turns up addressed to her and those 'who stay awake' or something like that. This one features a Japanese woman who is tied up and being tortured, who subsequently has an eyeball pierced very graphically and gets stabbed up all bloody. This intrigues Namu and instead of going to the cops she gets her loyal crew of expendable cast members together and heads out to the place on the video (the killer kind of gives her directions at the beginning of his film) under the assumption that this is just a fake snuff movie, or something to that effect. It's stupid anyway, and not the last stupid thing to happen in this film, because the moment they get there everyone splits up.

Namu heads off on her own and meets a mysterious fella who warns her away and says nothing more. Another couple start going at it hammer and tongs like they do in this kind of film, and the other two do something else. Predictably the female half of the post-coital couple gets wasted by myriad floor piercing blades in a rather cool, if stupid scene.

Whoever made this film is certainly up on their Italian horror - we have eye piercings, maggots, and a theme tune stolen from City of the Living Dead. The scenes are laid out Argento style and the gore and cheese are plentiful. For all its stupidity Evil Dead Trap wins out for its ending and its style. There are some very well executed scenes using flash photography, multiple TV monitors, traps (stick it up yer rectum SAW!) and in the end, utterly mental plot twists. I forgave the film for all its clichés and rip offs (plenty of girls running/falling/crawling...people walking backwards in the dark, and the surviving chick managing to escape and THEN HEADING BACK INTO the abandoned base thingy)...all these faults threaten to make you want to smash the TV in, but the look of the film, and some of the lovely set pieces make you forgive it (didn't need the rape scene though). If that doesn't sway you - the last, mind boggling fifteen minutes should.

READ ON - BUT THERE ARE SPOILERS AHOY!

Just when you think that the killer has been dispatched (and you are expecting him to get back up), his symbiotic twin brother, who up until that point existed only as a psychological construct, burst in a very gory organic form from the killer's chest and proceeds to attack the surviving girl. If this twist wasn't enough, the killer gets back up and stuffs his twin back into his chest, only to be burned alive, get up again, and finally fall out a window to shatter into tiny pieces. And if that ain't enough - the surviving girl gives birth to the twin at the end of the movie. Utter, entertaining brain damage.

Very very stupid though. Not much makes sense, so I'd avoid looking at the plot AT ALL. Seriously. Even thirty minutes in I was scratching my head. As with the best of trash - just send your brain to the shops and enjoy the ride. This film isn't the classic I've seen it made out to be, but it's certainly one for the collection. See it now.

Then scratch your head.

Shiryo No Wana, or Evil Dead Trap as it's more commonly known amongst Western audiences, starts at a Japanese cable TV station called Network 3 where extreme reality TV hostess Nami Tsuchiya (Miyuki Ono) receives a videotape in a parcel from a viewer. Nami plays the tape & discovers that it shows the brutal assault & murder of a young woman, thinking she may be onto a big story Nami gets permission from her boss (Shinsuke Shimada) to investigate the origins of the tape. The tape helpfully contained footage of how to get to the location it was shot in so with a few volunteers, a sound engineer Masako Abe (Aya Katsuragi), make-up artist Rei Sugiura (Hitomi Kobayashi), script writer Rya Kawamura (Eriko Nakagawa) & assistant director Akio Kondou (Masahiko Abe) Nami sets out to find her story. The location turns out to be an abandoned military facility, as they split up & search for clues Rei is brutally murdered. It's not long before the rest of the group discover Rei's fate & realise they are next! A sicko game playing killer stalks the dark damp corridors...

This Japanese production was directed by Toshiharu Ikeda & is a bit uneven. The script by Takashi Ishii starts brilliantly, the opening mystery surrounding the snuff tape, the location & who's behind it is very effective & gripping as it builds. Unfortunately it cannot maintain this as Shiryo No Wana descends into complete lunacy with one of the silliest, lamest & most unsatisfying climax's ever. I was hoping for more but the last thirty minutes really let all of it's good work to that point down. It's also one of those films that never knows when to quit, just when you think that's it something else totally ridiculous happens. The character's are OK except for Nami, I mean there is some unidentified psycho running around an old abandoned military base & this smartly dressed mysterious guy (Yuji Honma) just happens to be there without any sort of reasonable explanation, seems to turn up just after a murder occurs & seems very relaxed when he finds a severed head. Would you not be even a little bit suspicious of him? I think I would. The film rapidly goes downhill as it progresses. Shiryo No Wana drags a little in places but there are some nice ideas here & it's certainly watchable especially when compared to the unoriginal teenage American stuff being churned out on a conveyor belt.

Director Ikeda likes nice long shots which I do too, no ultra fast quick blink & you'll miss it editing here. He likes to place his camera above people looking down on them & their surroundings as well, the tension & atmosphere through the first two thirds of the film is excellent but that stupid ending really kills everything dead. The gore scenes are spread out but are very effective & quite brutal, the opening murder of the victim in the snuff tape is nasty with her eyeball being pierced with a knife in extreme close-up & from varying angles as liquid oozes out, ouch is all I can say! Someone is impaled on metal spikes, various stabbings, a severed head & another nasty bit when someone gets a huge blade implanted in the side of their head. There is also a fairly graphic & wholly unnecessary rape sequence.

Technically Shiryo No Wana is OK if basic & somewhat economical. Did anyone else think the music ripped off Day of the Dead (1985)? I haven't got a clue about the acting as I can't speak Japanese but it seems alright, the UK DVD which I have has a few dumb grammatical errors in the subtitling including spelling mistakes, duh!

Shiryo No Wana is a decent watch, it plays like a Japanese Friday the 13th (1980) type slasher that tries to be clever with it's ending. I liked it & it's memorable but not entirely satisfying, however it's still worth a watch.

If I had seen this sooner then, I would have definitely added this to my top 50 best slasher movies of all time, so I think an update is long overdue. After viewing this masterpiece my mind was just totally blown away. I mean rarely have I ever seen a horror movie that just gets everything this right, it just works on every level and should be better known.

The plot is very intriguing where a reporter Nami who hosts a TV show called 'The Late, Late Show' which is basically a mix of 'You've Been Framed' and 'America's Funniest Home Videos', gets sent a video tape which shows a young girl whose chained up getting brutally murdered, and at the end shows a picture of Nami, so instead of alerting the police, she decides to go with her crew to investigate, which leads them to a very creepy abandoned warehouse, and once there they split and start to get picked off one by one by a mysterious hooded killer.

'Evil Dead Trap' perfectly combines a mixture of other genre styled horrors such as 'Italian Horror', 'American Slasher Movies' & 'Japanese Horror' and makes something quite unique and even puts some of those to shame. It has stylish direction with a lot of eerie tension and a genuine creepy tone. Even when the characters wander around the building, the atmosphere is full of dread and the setting with its long and dark dingy corridors looks excellent and the director makes perfect use of this location. Even the score is very riveting and despite being used throughout the film no matter what situation it is, it totally works and very catchy.

Even the first murder which was nasty and very brutal, it also comes as a total surprise as you never expect it to be that fast, and even the other deaths remain well and truly mean spirited with some brilliant effects that are well staged with a savage tone. Plus we have a great heroine in Miyuki Ono who plays Nami brings a childlike innocence to the role and even without saying anything she can express her feelings with just her facial expressions which was very subtle and well done, and it's nice not having every character explain what their feeling all the time, it made her feel very human.

While each of these scenes are awesome, they all happen within the first 45 minutes, and the 2nd half of the movie does struggle a bit without the same momentum, but then at the final scene we do get a well and truly shocking twist that does totally take you off guard, and while it may seem a bit too bizarre for some, I personally found it brilliant and it did kinda make sense in a way, as there were unexplained things going on throughout the movie such as the killer just standing there while arrows and flairs are being fired, a tin can falling down the stairs seemingly on its own, and so on, and while the killer's identity wasn't a surprise at all, it's what comes after that which is the real shocker and almost takes on feels like a different genre altogether, kinda supernatural in a way, which was totally bizarre and my gripe with it is that it's never explained, but I guess that is what makes it so unsettling.

Another minor gripe with this is that there's a whole other subplot involving the killer's assistant which just went nowhere and was only there to add to the bodycount, but honestly that didn't spoil my enjoyment of this, although I would have liked to have known more about it. This is still a great movie that's very unique and gives you that feel that anything can happen at any time and the viewer is constantly on edge and although I did say that the 2nd half leaves little to do, it never gets boring and doesn't drag either, but it could have been slightly better structured.

So all in all 'Evil Dead Trap' is a definite must see for any fans of slasher movies, sure it's a little different to them but that's the beauty of it, it's definitely not generic in any way whatsoever and with stylish direction, gruesome bloody and inventive kills and decent performances, this is definitely a lost masterpiece that deserves more recognition.