
So in this mind I viewed Steel Trap, the latest offering from Dimension Extreme and director Luis Cámara.
Steel Trap is a case of good idea, bad execution. The story – a bunch of media-industry party goers get an intriguing invite to a private function and are viciously picked off during what they think is a treasure hunt – had a lot of potential for honest, messed-up fun. It’s too bad no-one involved could pull a single shred of talent out of their arseholes.
Instead, the movie consists of awful actors walking around dark corridors spouting ‘witty’ dialogue which, due to appalling sound design, sounds like it’s spoken underwater through a broken radio. Then there’s some blood. Then more walking and talking, before they make some monumentally stupid and unrealistic decisions, wow at the mysteries revealed, get picked off, and discover the unnecessary and terribly executed twist.
As far as horror goes, it’s totally missing in action. Aside from some nice mutilation near the beginning, there’s next to no gore. And while that can be used to create tension, Psycho this ain’t. Instead, it comes off as a weak slasher flick that just happens to be set in an abandoned building, where the ‘game’ aspect consists of a few badly inserted nursery rhymes and some carnival music which, considering they were all going to get uninspiredly slaughtered anyway, is totally redundant.
That said, it’s not totally unenjoyable. There are laughs galore as we watch badly drawn stereotypes say things that no-one would actually say, with less sincerity than a complimentary prostitute. The special effects are laughably bad, the direction is uninspired and lazy, and everything about it reeks of ineptitude. Especially the characters, who are so dumb they deserve to die for being completely useless in a crisis.
So, as a comedy, it’s actually not bad.
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