This Japanese film from 1988 does not share a universe with the beloved, American Evil Dead franchise. It does have the same nasty mean streak, though.
Every horror fan has their own personal threshold for carnage. There are some that don’t have a threshold, I suppose, who will watch absolutely anything without a problem, but most of us have a comfort zone, and much of the tension of horror cinema comes at the edges of that comfort zone. I have movies that I will likely never watch, just on reputation alone. A Serbian Film, Trauma, etc., do not interest me in the slightest and a simple perusal of their plots in the relatively sterile environment of Wikipedia is enough to validate that assertion. The majority of what I watch does not push any of my own personal boundaries, but one function of horror is actually to do so. Evil Dead Trap dances around that comfort zone for me a couple of times. I know that some of you read these reviews for recommendations, and I want to caution that even the first ten minutes of this movie will probably make more sensitive viewers tap out. The set up involves a late night TV host (Nami) that accepts video submissions from her fans. One night, she gets a video tape that appears to be a snuff film of a woman being graphically killed. It is intense and unflinching, in a way that grabbed my full attention but made me uneasy at the same time.
The plot proceeds from there as Nami assembles a mostly-female production crew to head to the spot of the murder and investigate, and more importantly to pop some ratings for her declining show. It’s an act of hubris that will have dire consequences, and thematically echoes the first film I reviewed this year, Late Night with the Devil. What proceeds is a grisly slasher with a handful of impressive and brutal kills, before introducing some wild supernatural elements in the third act. The narrative becomes more difficult to follow as the film goes on, so its hard for me to know what to take away from Evil Dead Trap. It resembles Italian giallo in that way, both in the specific way the violence is shot (and borderline fetishized) and in the dreamlike way the story is unveiled. Some of that could be the language barrier, and I can’t be sure I didn’t glance away and miss a crucial line of dialogue along the way, but the killer’s motivations did not gel into a clear philosophy for me. In some ways, that makes everything that happens to the victims less understandable and therefore more scary, although I’m not sure that’s what the filmmakers had in mind. I think there is a case to be made for subtext about pursuing fame at all costs, but the more I examine the various plot strands, the more I think there might be a conservative riff on career vs motherhood in there. Either way, I don’t understand enough to really opine on the filmmakers’ intentions, which may in fact be no more complex than to unsettle their audience.
I’m trying to leave you enough breadcrumbs to decide if you want to watch this movie or not. I am glad I watched it, although I can’t really make an unqualified recommendation for anyone else. In addition to the sheer brutality of that opening kill, the depiction of violence towards women is at best provocative, at worst problematic. In some ways, that is a symptom of the time period, regardless of what country the horror is being produced, and it isn’t as if men don’t also meet violent ends in Evil Dead Trap. It still struck a chord with me, though, again pushing up against the edge of what I’m comfortable watching. There’s a fine line between exploitation and effective horror, so mileage will vary depending on the sensibilities of whoever is watching. Purely from a quality perspective, this movie is creatively shot, solidly acted, and generally impactful in the ways it intends to be. That is excepting the ending, which escalates things in a baffling and kind of silly manner, but still in a way that I basically enjoyed for how weird it was. I’ve already teased that I’m closing the month out with a notoriously brutal film of recent vintage, and my viewing of Evil Dead Trap turned into a bit of an unintentional dry run for that. To that end I’m doubly encouraged about my ability to weather the onslaught, because I was able to endure this violence without flinching, but also because I’m not so desensitized that it didn’t have an impact. We’ll see if that planned marathon closer has the ability to truly terrify me.
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