Rating: 
Summary: It's all over for the Unknown Soldier
Review: "Evil Dead Trap" (Shiryo no Wana) proves that sometimes you've just gotta give a bad flick a second chance.
I wasn't in a receptive mood when I first watched this infernal juggernaut of grue and carnage, or maybe I was too doused in firewater to appreciate it. Whatever, I thought the film was godawful: slow, dull, meandering, not shocking at all. An hour in I hit STOP, and nearly returned it.
What a mistake that would have been. I gave it a second chance, and I'd like to warn you: you may find yourself grinding your teeth at tedium or stupidity, and decide "Evil Dead Trap" isn't your mug of blood. If you find yourself thinking that, turn the flick off, wait a week, and try it again.
"Evil Dead Trap" is like diving through a dumpster in search of a bottle with a few ounces of the old rotgut, and coming up with an unopened bottle of Chianti. Or spotting a dog turd on your driveway, only when you return with the scooper it's actually a gold nugget the length of your forearm.
Or you've blown the dinner budget on firewater again, and as you peel back the lid of that tin of catfood, you realize it's full of Sevruga caviar.
Don't misinterpret my 5-star rating: Evil Dead Trap is not a masterpiece. In some ways---the dialogue, the pacing, the thin characterization---it's not even a very good movie.
But part of what I'm looking for is a flick capable of pushing the envelope and embracing the extreme; the sick, the soul-searing, the sordid, macabre and terrifying. I want a horror movie to break my jaw, sink its yellow choppers into my jugular, and rewire my neurons while it's slicing and dicing.
In Evil Dead Trap, I found it.
The plot is sleek and simple: Nami receives an anonymous videotape for her late-night reality TV show. Initially just a first-person account of a ride out of Tokyo: grainy, the tape is obviously shot by handheld videocam, depicting the travel route through the car's windshield, noting with meticulous care highway turn-offs and landmarks, finally arriving at what appears to be a derelict, abandoned military base. There is no commentary, and the identity of the filmmaker---and any accomplices---is not revealed.
The video cuts to the interior of one of the ruined buildings, zooms in on a young woman, hands suspended, chained, above her head: we witness the knife move down towards her eye, the blade arcing in to slice open the cornea, the lense. We watch her die,and at the last minute, Nami's face is superimposed on the victim's own.
Nami is intrigued. She and her crew decided on a little road trip, follow the directions in the video, enter the military base, split up, and prowl around. You can probably figure out what happens next.
Or can you? I'm willing to bet you can't---and by the way, the warped, completely insane little turn at the end warrants the 5-star rating. It's like happening upon a Demon wearing a zombie-mask: by the time you realize the old bullet in the head technique doesn't work it's too late. It's all about fear, my lovelies. It's like that troll beneath the bridge waiting for the Bill Goats Gruff: it festers, it simmers, it giggles down there in the dark beneath the stairway. It wants to hide, play, and kill.
It helps that Ikeda is a genius at pacing and wields a mean camera: the cinematography is alternately garish, gorgeous, vivid and lush, and unflinchingly clinical. The camera doesn't shake or reel away from the violence: it fixates on it, draws us deeper, forces us to look.
The location doesn't hurt things, either: virtually the entire flick takes place in the brooding confines of the abandoned military base, which quickly becomes a character in its own right. It is a sprawling, rambling labyrinth of corridors and hallways, control rooms and laboratories, chutes and shafts and tunnels, bleak, forsaken, rippling with rot and decay and maggots. Oh, and providing the Killer with plenty of places to hide, rig traps, brutalize victims undisturbed, and set up ambushes.
Ikeda devises some ghoulishly evocative setpieces that contrast nicely: the sere, shadowy, forlorn bleakness of much of the base, contrasted with the wan exterior shots, ruined outbuildings and guard-posts festooned and overrun with jungle or shrouded in thick fog---or even the baroque sickroom of the Killer's inner sanctum (festooned with dummy cadavers and mellowly lit by candle, it looks like something out of Brueghel's Hell).
If anything, "Evil Dead Trap" works because of its subtlety and sleight-of-hand. Director Ikeda has conjured up a true Devil's Playground, and caught his killing fields on film: we are at liberty to wander the grounds of this Kingdom of Darkness, at our own peril, and as the Hunted, naturally.
And then the questions: why does Nami's mysterious rescuer (Noboru Mitani)know his way around the base so well? Why does he talk about being confined in a small cell early in his life? Why does the Killer haunt a military base, and what sort of purpose did the base serve, with its storerooms and laboratories? What, exactly, went on here?
Oh, and one other question: while you've been reading this review, who has been turning the doorknob to your front door? And whose footsteps do you hear coming down the hall?
Welcome to the Devil's Playground.
JSG
Rating: 
Summary: Un tour de force!
Review: Ce film est extravagant. L'histoire est prétexte à des scènes de violence. Par contre, ce contexte permet une forme de mise en scène agressive et complètement survoltée. Démembremment, hurlement, torture sanglante, forces machiavéliques... tout y est. Certe, il existe d'autre moyens que la violence pour traduire cette forme de génie cinématographique mais ces extravagances sont permises, ou du moins acceptées par les fans du cinéma fantastique. Le DVD est supporté par une piste audio de commentaires du réalisateur et du superviseur des effets spéciaux. Ce qui ajoute de l'intérêt à certaine scènes du film puisqu'il arrive que le spectateur occidental se retrouve, quelque fois, hors contexte en ce qui attrait aux moeurs et coutumes orientals. En somme, c'est un bon film d'horreur à découvrir pour son originalité et son énergie expressive; deux qualités rares les temps qui courent, hein?
Rating: 
Summary: First 90 minutes gets 4 stars, ending ruins it
Review: Evil Dead Trap is a dark, gothic, and gruesome cult classic. If you are a horror fan, you will notice alot of familer scenes and styles that the director adapted for the great look of this film. The film starts out fast and slows down halfway through. The first 45 minutes we are witnessing multiple gruesome murders at breakneck speed then the film slows down and follows the lead character Nami. At this point, the film uses fear and style to keep the movie rolling. Some scenes will almost seem like rip-offs such as fast moving perspective shots (a la Evil Dead) and a scene with maggots falling from a ceiling (Suspiria) but I think these scenes are done out of tribute and respect before plagerism. I did enjoy this movie and I do recommend it to serious horror fans but I did dislike the ending. Others may like the ending and it sort of reminds me of Dario Argento's style of twisting the story out of control at the last minute but here it is just a gooey way of bringing a final shock. Some of the violence in this movie is a little over the top for me too but that is a personal preference. I usually have a high tolerance towards gore but I had a hard time watching the first murder on the videotape sent to Nami. I also wasn't fond of the scene where Rya gets raped and then drug over the top of the car and dropped on her neck/head. Besides these small things, there was still alot to enjoy here and it had the potential to be a classic but only falls a few millimeters short so I still recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Injury to the Eye Motif
Review: I cannot claim to be an expert on Horror films, and although I know the name, I have never seen "Suspira" or many of the other oft-referenced flicks featured in other reviews. That being so, this review may be helpful from the viewpoint of a casual viewer, and is hopefully taken as such.I watched "Evil Dead Trap" on a whim, hoping to see a Japanese horror flick around Halloween time. I must confess, I wasn't prepared for the sheer brutality of some of the scenes, including the aforementioned injury to the eye motif. Not quite a slasher film and not quite a psychological horror film, there are elements of both. Something along the lines of "Silence of the Lambs" combined with the gore and violence of a "Friday the 13th" movie. The opening half is definitely superior for to the second, with the brutal videotapes captivating my attention, as well as that of Nami. However, the more the movie tries to explore the connection between the killer and Nami, the more obscure the plot gets, and the more difficult it is to stay interested. All in all, it is not a bad film, but not a very good one either. The high level of explicit gore might be a barrier to casual horror film watchers, and the dense plot might be a barrier to those hoping for a good slashing. I don't think I will watch it again, but it was interesting to watch once.
Rating:
Summary: Injury to the Eye Motif
Review: I cannot claim to be an expert on Horror films, and although I know the name, I have never seen "Suspira" or many of the other oft-referenced flicks featured in other reviews. That being so, this review may be helpful from the viewpoint of a casual viewer, and is hopefully taken as such. I watched "Evil Dead Trap" on a whim, hoping to see a Japanese horror flick around Halloween time. I must confess, I wasn't prepared for the sheer brutality of some of the scenes, including the aforementioned injury to the eye motif. Not quite a slasher film and not quite a psychological horror film, there are elements of both. Something along the lines of "Silence of the Lambs" combined with the gore and violence of a "Friday the 13th" movie. The opening half is definitely superior for to the second, with the brutal videotapes captivating my attention, as well as that of Nami. However, the more the movie tries to explore the connection between the killer and Nami, the more obscure the plot gets, and the more difficult it is to stay interested. All in all, it is not a bad film, but not a very good one either. The high level of explicit gore might be a barrier to casual horror film watchers, and the dense plot might be a barrier to those hoping for a good slashing. I don't think I will watch it again, but it was interesting to watch once.
Rating:
Summary: Injury to the Eye Motif
Review: I cannot claim to be an expert on Horror films, and although I know the name, I have never seen "Suspira" or many of the other oft-referenced flicks featured in other reviews. That being so, this review may be helpful from the viewpoint of a casual viewer, and is hopefully taken as such. I watched "Evil Dead Trap" on a whim, hoping to see a Japanese horror flick around Halloween time. I must confess, I wasn't prepared for the sheer brutality of some of the scenes, including the aforementioned injury to the eye motif. Not quite a slasher film and not quite a psychological horror film, there are elements of both. Something along the lines of "Silence of the Lambs" combined with the gore and violence of a "Friday the 13th" movie. The opening half is definitely superior for to the second, with the brutal videotapes captivating my attention, as well as that of Nami. However, the more the movie tries to explore the connection between the killer and Nami, the more obscure the plot gets, and the more difficult it is to stay interested. All in all, it is not a bad film, but not a very good one either. The high level of explicit gore might be a barrier to casual horror film watchers, and the dense plot might be a barrier to those hoping for a good slashing. I don't think I will watch it again, but it was interesting to watch once.
Rating:
Summary: Gooey Japanese Offering
Review: I turned off the lights and settled into my recliner in great anticipation, finally being able to see this legendary Japanes horror film. The first few minutes were shocking and graphic (oh boy) but somehow without any real feeling of dread or fear. But good effects. What followed was a somewhat hollow exercise in Dario Argento worship. The soundtrack music even sounded like an Argento soundtrack. The movie looks good and the lead actress is a startling Sigourney Weaver look-alike, but Evil Dead Trap failed to grip me. Although the set piece murders were accomplished, they failed to scare me. Phooey. It has all the (seeming) Argento style, without any of the substance. Listening to the director's commentary, which is almost unintelligable due to his very thick accent (subtitled would have been better), only confirmed my worst fears. All the style is just that.....style. At one point he said he used yellow lights and gells and then switched to blue because when watching heavily yellow scenes, the eyes wants to see blue! Argento's color coding is grounded in a thematic structure....Evil Dead Trap's color coding is just pretty colors. At the end of the film there is a hail of mica. The reason, according to the director? "It looks pretty." Hum. One thing a horror film must have is a logic. It has to make sense. It can be loony, but it must make sense in it's loony cinematic world. The ending, with the "other" murderous being, seemed tacked on and frankly I never could understand it. What the heck was that? And how did it morph into the heroine? While not a total failure, the movie is sort of fun, but don't expect anything memorable. This is definate drive-in stuff, and it succeeds on that level. But (minor) masterpiece? Not even close.
Rating: 
Summary: Well shot and directed derivative misogynistic trash
Review: I'd seen this because I've been getting into the new Asian horror film movement of late and I heard this was one of the best. More fool me. It WAS well directed, comparable to Dario Argento in particular in style and storyline. Nothing wrong with homages, but Argento, for all his own misogyny, is more even handed with the violence in his movies, showing men having graphic and terrible deaths. EDT seems to focus more on violence against its women, with only one on-screen male death that is extremely quick. I got caught up on EDT's surreal horror, but afterwords, when thinking about it, realized it didn't answer an essential question posed in the film: why does the killer kill, and why does the killer enjoy it? Because of this, the film becomes an empty misogynistic exercise. But it sure do look pretty.
Rating:
Summary: Well shot and directed derivative misogynistic trash
Review: I'd seen this because I've been getting into the new Asian horror film movement of late and I heard this was one of the best. More fool me. It WAS well directed, comparable to Dario Argento in particular in style and storyline. Nothing wrong with homages, but Argento, for all his own misogyny, is more even handed with the violence in his movies, showing men having graphic and terrible deaths. EDT seems to focus more on violence against its women, with only one on-screen male death that is extremely quick. I got caught up on EDT's surreal horror, but afterwords, when thinking about it, realized it didn't answer an essential question posed in the film: why does the killer kill, and why does the killer enjoy it? Because of this, the film becomes an empty misogynistic exercise. But it sure do look pretty.
Rating:
Summary: getting it all wrong!
Review: I'm getting tired of the constant negative reviews of this movie. The whole point is to serve as a tribute to Argento,Fulci, and Rami, not rip them off as so many reviews have stated on here. What we get with EDT is a tribute to all the italian/american horror films that the director fancied, only with the amped japanese take on gore, and interesting cinematography. Anyone offended by the film's mysoginistc angle obviously haven't seen Argento's "tenebre"! When you come down to it, the movie delivers what you're promised: Gore, a sadistic killer, and atmosphere o plenty. EDT 2 also is worth checking out, definate nods to "Suspiria" in that one!
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