Evil Dead Trap

Title - Evil Dead trap
Language - Japanese
Genre - slasher, Horror

As is often the case this may have a few spoilers

Nami is the host of a late night new T.V. show.  A video tape is delivered to her.  When she watches it she finds that most of the tape is a journey to an abandoned building but then things take a turn for the worst, the end of the tape is the torture and murder of a women followed by a picture of Nami.  Determined to find out whether the murder was real, Nami and her news crew follow the route shown in the part of the tape which leads them to an old industrial building.  The group split into three groups of two two’s and one to go and explore to see if they can find any evidence of the murder on the film.  As the party travels through the building they are picked off one by one by a mysterious figure and the deadly traps he has set.  Will any of the party remain alive long enough to find out why they were lured there.

In many ways ‘Evil Dead Trap’ is a standard 80’s slasher (it was made in 1988) and follows the standard slasher plot of; a group of people visit a  place.  Unknown to them there is murderer/slasher there and they are killed one at a time.  The film also follows many of the standard slasher tropes, for instance the first kill takes places after a couple have sex, which is seen in many western slashers (the ‘friday 13th’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ franchises are a good example of this)but , unlike the other slashers the new crew  are not there to party and fornicate but to investigate a possible murder.  This makes their initial decision to split into three groups a bit odd seeing as they already know that there may be a killer around.

The five main characters who form the film crew the news crew are:

Nami - the main character and film anchor

Lee & Rie - backstage crew

Makio - Photographer

Kondo - the only male on the crew who seems to be the ‘gofer’

With the exception of Nami it’s not really obvious what roles the rest of the crew play with the possible exception of Makio who is always running around photographing everything but the film needs victims or else it wouldn't be a slasher. Kondo seems to have the distinction of being included in the crew so we have a male and female for the  (consensual) sex scene.  Apart from that he seems to spend his time hiding in cupboards and being a bit of an arse, he also has the distinction of being the one kill we don’t see on screen(slight spoiler but if you’ve seen even one other slasher you’ll know he had it coming).

Apart from the news crew there are four other characters who appear at the building, these are:

an unnamed man who is looking for his brother, he seems to know his way around the building including a secret passage.

another unnamed man who likes to rape people and give (cryptic) information about the killer whilst doing so.

Hideki - for most of the film this is just a name we here.  Possibly the first man’s brother

Hideki’s mother is also (kinda but not a Norman Bates Kinda) in the film.

It is a good guess that one of these is the killer and that one lured the crew to the building but the film does do a good job of keeping at least some of it’s secrets until the final confrontation.

Evil Dead Trap is a good little slasher and, even if you guess who is going to be the first to go you don’t guess how and when.  Some of the deaths are gory and there are a couple of good jump moments as well as a couple of fake outs.  Some of the effects are a bit dated but it stands up better than another film with a similar killer  (whose title i will not name because it will be a massive spoiler).  There are a couple of moments of ‘Hostel’ like torture and a couple of ‘Saw’ like traps but the film is definitely more slasher than anything else.

Evil Dead Trap has spawned two sequels, ‘Evil Dead Trap 2’, which I will review in a following entry and ‘The Brutal Insanity of Love’ which i can not find a copy of. If i ever do I will also review it.

Doctor Phibes Rises Again

Title - Doctor Phibes Rises Again
Language - English
Genre - Horror, Slasher

















This is the sequel to ‘The abominable doctor Phibes’ which I've reviewed here and this review may contain some spoilers.
The film starts with a with a flashback to the first film and a voice over tells us that Doctor Phibes had joined his wife but that he was only in a death like state, waiting until the right time to carry out the next part of his plan.  Three years after the end of the first film the sun hits Doctor Phibes’ coffin in the right place and the embalming fluid that Phibes had used is replaced with his blood.
Doctor Phibes awakens and summons his companion, Vulnavia and the couple use the organ lift to go back to his house to get a papyrus out of the vault only to find the house has been demolished and the vault is empty.  Doctor Phibes tracks down the papyrus  which is a map to a tomb in Egypt and he steals it back from Beiderbecke, an archeologist who is also trying to find the tomb.
The Egyptian tomb contains the entrance to the river of life which flows once every 2000 years.  Doctor Phibes plans to go there with Vulnavia and his dead wife to resurrect her and grant them all eternal life.  Beiderbecke has been sustaining his life via a mystical elixir and wants to use the river to grant himself eternal life and end his need for the elixir.
Both Phibes and Beiderbecke race against time and each other to unlock the secrets of the tomb and to be the one who gains use of the river.

I think i mentioned in the review for the first film that  Doctor Phibes is an early example of a modern slasher and the second film carries this on.  The sequel delves into the supernatural more than the first, in the abominable Doctor Phibes, Phibes is a living man who, like Michael Myers or Pamela Voohrees is killing a set of people for his own reasons without any supernatural aid  but when we come to the second film we have a more supernatural flavor leading to our slasher becoming unkillable, if he succeeds.  I also mentioned in the first review that some of Doctor Phibes’ traps and kills   could almost have been inspiration for movies such as the saw franchises the kill’s that springs to mind in this film are

1) the one involving the golden scorpion chair, where the victim is placed in a situation where he has to put himself in danger (or wait until someone finds him) to get out of the trap

2) the final trap where Beiderbecke has has to choose between his goal or his wife.

There are a couple of issues with the flow form the first film to the second.  The voice over at the beginning of the second film says that the police uncovered clues to where Doctor Phibes was hiding and that they caught him unprepared which is why he went into the tomb at the end, this is not true Phibes told them where he was so that the doctor could find his son and try to rescue him, the fact that Phibes went into the tomb with his wife was part of is plan all along making it the 10th death and the representation of the curse of darkness.  The second issue is that at the beginning of ‘Doctor Phibes rises again’ Phibes summons Vulnavia who appears, almost ghost like to aid him but at the end of the first film we see her hit and melted by the acid.  From what I have read  I believe that Vulnavia’s odd resurrection is due to the character originally being written as one of the clockwork toys that Phibes has created this was latter written out of the first film but, if it were still the case then this would explain why she appears in the second film un-injured, she is just a different model.  This is also the reason why the character doesn't speak, the clockwork version would not be able to.

Doctor Phibes Rises Again has a good British cast and has the same type of humor as it’s predecessor, the deaths are interesting and, although not as gruesome as you may expect in a modern movie they still make the film a good slasher. There seems to be more story to the second film as Phibes is not just killing for revenge but to get back what has been stolen from him and to keep his presence secret.

If you like imaginative deaths and a few giggles I recommend both of the Doctor Phibes films and think that is a pity that there were no more made.

The Abominable Doctor Phibes

Title - The Abominable Doctor Phibes
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy, slasher

The Abominable doctor Phibes is the first of two Doctor Phibes films starting Vincent Price as the titular doctor.  As we start the film we see figure in a cloak and a woman as they deliver a parcel through a skylight into the room of a sleeping man.  Neither of the speak to each other whilst this is going on and the cloaked man pulls the parcel back out of the room we see that it is a cage with the door open.  The sleeping man wakes up and sees something moving in his room and a number of bats fly at him ripping his face open.

When the police investigate the dead man we find out that he was a doctor and is the second to die an unusual death, the first was stung to death by bees, his face was covered in boils.

The cloaked man and his companion, Vulnvia are then at a masquerade ball where they hand a man (another doctor) an ornate frog mask which constricts, crushing the man’s head.

The man & Vulnvia are next seen at the house of a fourth doctor who they drain all of the blood from his body, whist he is there the man accidently drops an amulet which the police use to get a clue to what is going on.

The only link the police find between the dead doctors is that they all worked one case, the wife of doctor Phibes who died on the operating table.  The amulet that doctor Phibes dropped was one of a set of ten, each representing one of the 10 plagues of Egypt and there were 9 doctors who worked on the operation.  All clues point to the murderer being Doctor Phibes except he died in a car crash the same night as his wife.

The Abominable Doctor Phibes is an early example of a slasher movie with the killer targeting the surgeons who he blames for the death of his wife and his gimmick way using the 10 biblical Egyptian plagues to kill each of the doctors making each kill more inventive than the last.  I can’t help but wonder if the ‘cures of the first born’ influenced the ‘saw’ films in any way, it’s defiantly as twisted.

The film is very ‘British’ set in London in the 1920s it has a cast of well known British actors of the time and has a dark humour to it using similar gags as can be found in some of the carry on or St Trinnians movies such as calling Inspector Trout by different fish.

Part of the horror atmosphere is helped by neither of the leads saying much.  Vulnvia is a mute and one of the injuries Doctor Phibes suffered from during the car crash was damage to his throat meaning that he can only speak when attached a device similar to a gramophone speaker.

If you like inventive kills, a few giggles and over the top acting then give The abominable Doctor Phibes a watch.

Slugs (1988)

Title - Slugs
Language - English
Genre - Horror, slasher

Ah the joys of Netflix,  one minuet you’re watching  7 episodes of ‘Mighty Morphing power Rangers’ with your 2 year old daughter or the ‘Twin Peaks’ with were wolfs that is ‘Hemlock Grove’(not with the daughter) and the next you find a film about one of the most pointless and gross animals out there.  I mean what is the point of a slug they are black splodges of goo that carry parasites and leave messy trails everywhere, the only good use I can see for them is that they feed cute things like hedgehogs. 

 So I gave the film ‘Slugs’ a watch to see if we can add ‘good horror baddy’ as a use for the slimy buggers.

*some Spoilers*

So we start with couple of teens messing about on a boat on a lake, the boy tries to get the girl to go for a swim, jumps into the water and is promptly turned into a blood fountain by “something Slimy”.  We then cut an old drunk and his dog getting back into the house they are going to evicted from.  The dog starts going mad because dogs can sense evil slugs, as oppose the normal type (dogs are another animal I’m not too keen on but at least they have a use, plus they can be anthropomorphized into cute anime babes, have you ever seen a cute  anthropomorphized slug, I think the ‘Slurm Queen’ is the closest thing.)

 Anyway the drunk and dog go into the house and the drunk proceeds to get eaten.  The next morning the police and the environment health officer, Mike Brady come to evict the drunk only to find what remains of the corps (covered in some kind of a worm) and making sure we all know that ‘they even ate his eyes’.

Slugs then goes on to become a kind of Slasher movie, instead of the normal, masked humanoid with a fetish for killing with some kind of kitchen wear we get masses of black, slimy, squirming slugs which does lead to some interesting kill’s.

As the death toll increases Mike soon works out  slugs are to blame, I think the slug with fang teeth that bit him in his garden may have given it away (oddly enough a slug mouth with more human teeth is slightly less disturbing than the normal gapping, sucky hole normal slugs have).  Of course no one believes Mike so he gets some of the slugs in a jar and takes them down to the local British slug expert, because you always need a handy expert in whatever is killing people and most of the time they are British.  With no one believing him Mike has to find a way to stop the slugs before they eat everyone.

As I said, Slugs follows the same formula as most slasher movies, a kill moves through a town, killing whoever it encounters, each death getting bigger and better, we even get the obligatory teens having sex then getting killed scene, and some of the death scenes are better than some human slashers have managed to pull off which is even more impressive known they were caused by slow moving tubes of goo.  So, as a slasher Slugs was entertaining and I can honestly say that it was not a terrible as I was expecting.

The Slugs were referred to as being larger than normal slugs but seeing as normal slugs were used this didn’t come across well and the teeth in the few cg (stop motion) slugs were slightly laughable.  There were a few plot holes and the penultimate death, the girl at the party seemed to have been put in just to get the body count higher but, if you dint think too hard about it (and who would) then Slugs is a good way to pass an hour and a half although I can’t help thinking there would be more than the one slug seen that survived.

 I now have another reason to dread stepping on of the slimy critters in the dark.

At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul

Title – At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma)

Language – Portuguese

Genre – Horror, Slasher, Ghost

At Midnight I’ll take your soul is a Brazilian movie from 1964 and is the first of the ‘Coffin Joe’ Movies.

Ze do Caixao (Ze to his friends) is a grave digger in a small {Catholic} Brazilian town, he is violent, rude, self-important and blasphemous to the point of, not only eating lamb on a Friday but also forcing others to do so (It is against the Catholic religion to eat any meat on a Friday).  The only thing Ze believes in it the continuation of his bloodline, unfortunately his wife, Lenita, cannot bear any children so Ze kills her, making it look like an accedent and starts perusing Terezinha, his best friends fiancée. The night before their wedding Terezinha, her fiancée Antonio and Ze go to a local witch to have their fortunes told, to make sure the wedding will be blessed.  The Witch predicts Antonio’s death, suffering for Terezinha and tells Ze that he will pay for his sins.

 Ze kills Antonio again making it look like an accident and tries to get Terezinha to fall in love with him, when this fails he rapes her in the hope that she will give him a son, instead Terezinha kills herself.

On the night of the festival of the ‘Day of the Dead’ Ze walks a young lady back to the house she is staying in, as no one else will due their superstition.  On the way to her house they encounter the witch who tells Ze to return home, if he is out at midnight the dead will take his soul, Ze mocks her and continues on his way.  As he returns home the witches warning starts to become reality.

The Character of Ze do Caixao well-acted as he swings from acts of violence to blasphemous, Satanic rambling whilst looking down on the rest of the town folk and then on to his questioning of belief and (possible) decent to madness and it is nice to find a ‘slasher’ who’s victims aren’t just the latest bunch of horny teens who happen to pick the wrong campsite or street to move into (although I am a fan of the normal Slasher films it is sometimes nice to find something slightly different).  In some scenes Ze could almost have come out of a silent move or an old (Universal ) Horror with a lot of emphasis on his face.  There a few scenes, normally when another character does something that annoys Ze when the camera focuses on his eyes and it looks like he is going to hypnotise the other character (like Dracula does) but nothing seems to happen and there is nothing that says that Ze has any type of supernatural power (maybe this is expanded on in the later films).  There is not much to like about the character with his one redeeming feature being that he cannot stand crudity to children as he sees them as being the only real purpose for living

The effects in ‘At midnight I’ll take your soul’ are quite good for a film of its age, the scenes of violence are quite realistic but some of the supernatural bits are a bit dated (the owl is obviously stuffed), the film is also in black and white and not in English, points that don’t bother me but I know some people are a bit more fussy.

At midnight I’ll take your soul has some scenes of violence and does include (off Camera) rape and I get the impression that some of the latter films take this further and more graphic so not advisable for young children or people who don’t like that sort of thing.