Evil Dead Trap (1988) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Toshiharu Ikeda
STARRING: Miyuki Ono, Aya Katsuragi, Hitomi Kobayashi
RATED: UR/REGION O/1:66/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Unearthed Films
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. Director Toshiharu Ikeda takes a lot of different classic horror elements and tosses them into a blinder to create the very interesting and bloody, Evil Dead Trap!
When you make a list of some of the best Asian horror films ever made, I believe Evil Dead Trap is a film that belongs on that list. Nami works at a TV station where she is one of the TV personalities. She gets a very strange video that has a lot of mystery surrounding it and this makes her want to investigate. Of course her working at the TV station means she takes her crew with her and this proves to be a very bad idea because now not only is she in danger, but so are they. It might seem like a regular run of the mill horror film when you read the plot here, but it isn’t. What goes down in that location they end up at is bizarre, bloody, and a whole lot of weird fun. It’s everything you’ve come to love about Asian horror films in the 2000s, but this happening in 1988 makes this film a true innovator in Asian horror.
It really is hard to describe what happens in this film, especially near the end. It’s all just something you have to see to truly take in. People are rapped, people have their faces half way cut off, and we get a villain that is anything but typical. It’s a film that will please horror fans of all types, especially those who love some really nasty looking gore. Now I will admit the film could have probably ended about three times before it did end and get a good result, but that last ending is both shocking and makes you want to see the sequel. If nothing else, this proves that while horror was on a decline here in the states in the late 1980s, it was doing very well over in Japan. If you have yet to see this, you NEED to see this. You’ll find a nice list of extras on this special edition Blu-ray that is new from the old Synapse DVD, but more important of all you’ll finally have this in HD. Which, by the way, looks just fine outside of some grain. Can we get part 2 on Blu-ray now, please?
Extras
- Audio Commentary with Director Toshiharu Ikeda and SPFX Manager Shinichi Wakasa
- Audio Commentary by filmmaker Kurando Mitsutake
- Audio Commentary with James Mudge of easternKicks
- Trappings of the Dead: Reflecting on a Japanese Cult Classic
- Storyboards
- Behind the Scenes Stills
- Promotional Artwork
- Trailers
QUALITY OF TRANSFER: 87%
