HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021: Evil Dead Trap (1988)

And here we are at the end of another Halloween Horrorfest.  I will share some final thoughts on this year's gauntlet after talking about tonight's feature.  As is his wont, my Patreon Sean Foster (Domicile of Dread Patreons get a free slot in this and other events as well as early access to select podcasts and podcasts exclusives--plus I will get to those commentaries I promised before I die!  So maybe you'd like to join up?) bought a second slot through my Ko-Fi and asked me to watch as my last hurrah this year 1988's Japanese horror Evil Dead Trap.

Now I know I'm not the only one who loves horror but has certain...I wouldn't call them 'triggers' as much as signifiers that you try to keep away from.  One of the reasons I sat out most of the so-called 'torture porn' wave of the '00s (sorry for using that term, Luke) is because I am incredibly uncomfortable with a certain kind of aesthetic that those films played right into.  I also get extremely wigged out by what I have jokingly referred to as 'the injury to the eye motif'--not a sudden death where something goes through someone's eye, but a lingering set piece that draws out the pain of the person it's being inflicted on.  As much as I may appreciate Lucio Fulci's work, there are some scenes I have never seen in its entirety because I could not watch, say, Tisha Farrow's eye being slowly lowered onto a jagged splinter of wood.

I say that to explain why this film was such a rough watch for me.  This film has both that aesthetic to the point where I think someone who pioneered the sadism films of the 00's must've watched this film, an injury to the eye scene...and a uncomfortable rape scene and a snuff film aspect to it, which also makes me uncomfortable*.  So take that in mind when reading what follows.

Nami (Miyuki One) hosts Late, Late Night, an after hours television show that accepts viewer submissions...and one of those submissions is a tape that seems to be a travelogue until it turns into a snuff film with the aforementioned injury to the eyes motif.  Ratings are down, so Nami is eager to find out if this tape is real.  So her all-female crew save for the assistant director use the clues in the tape to locate a falling apart military base...where a figure in a camo mask and a rain poncho is waiting to kill them and get Nami to accept a position of some significance to them.  And yes...I intentionally said 'them.'

Most accounts of this film refer to it as a slasher...and yet, it's fairly obvious to me that director Toshiharu Ikeda has his mind elsewhere.  One has only to look at Ikeda's use of color and composition, as well as the very Goblin-esque score to realize that he's very consciously paying homage to Dario Argento's film--especially Deep Red and Suspiria, as there are scenes that are remarkably close to some set pieces from those movies.  Once I locked in on this, it made the transition the film makes from being just a giallo into something more fantastical late in the second act easier.  Like Argento during his early period--you know, his great period--Ikeda and scriptwriter Takashii Ishi are telling their story with a dream logic perspective.  Narrative coherence doesn't matter as much as catching the feeling of disorientation you get from a nightmare.  While I don't think it is as successful as the films that inspire it, there are moments where that feeling is achieved.

I've gotta think, incidentally, that James Wan must've saw this film...not just because the abandoned-and-decaying-industrial look of this film seems like an inspiration for the look of Saw (and thus all the much, much lesser films that tried to emulate it--including the sequels to Saw), but there is a plot twist in the third act that may have inspired another, more recent, film of his.  It's definitely a precursor to that style that dominated horror cinema both just before and well after the turn of the century.

I will say that the third act seems...a little longer than it should be, especially when it comes to the final sting in the tale, which takes five minutes to get to something that could've been gotten to in one.

Did I enjoy this film?  Not really, because it was pressing so many of my 'do not want' buttons.  Do I think you might enjoy this film?  I do, especially from a historical perspective, as it may very well be a bridge between 1970's Italy and 2000's America when it comes to popular horror genres.

AAAAaaaaaaaand We're Done!

You and I have made it through another Halloween Horrorfest.  It wasn't as successful as last year's gauntlet...but then that gauntlet raised far more money for various charities than I expected it to.  In retrospect, I think the impulsive decision to devote such a large portion of this year's event to a theme was a mistake; the back half of the schedule began to wear on me a lot quicker, and it brought in more films of substandard means and intentions.  I don't think I will do a festival-in-a-festival again, although I am open to suggestions.

Thanks, as always, to my Patreons, my various celebrity guests who I still can't believe actively participate, and you for sticking around.  I can now go back to watching and talking about what I want and striving to make good on promises I have made, starting with that episode of Don't Call It A... featuring me and Michael Bailey talking about the very 70's team comic The Champions, a little morsel I've teased called I Bought That For A Dollar!, and an essay entitled 'The Joy of Finiteness.'  I hope you will stick around, and I hope I will be back to being more prolific.  See you soon!

*--Yes, I know one of the stories in V/H/S/94 has a snuff film component, but it's introduced so late in the day that I didn't have the impact that the one in this film did.  Also...watching the final product makes my imagination go to darker places than watching a product being made, if that makes sense.