Steel Trap
Accent Underground
R4 DVD
An
abandoned tower block seems a great place for a wild New Year’s Party but it seems
a killer has something else in mind. A group of rather unlikeable and self
obsessed party goers, each one a minor celebrity (a cooking show host, a former
child star, an advice columnist, a TV executive etc) are having a good time on
the 27th floor of an abandoned tower block, they each receive a SMS
message inviting them to an exclusive party. When they arrive they find
themselves in a strange children’s like party each with place markers
describing their less than admirable traits such as pig, loser, two faced,
heartless, loverboy etc. They bicker, take some cocaine, flirt and party on
until they find a party napkin that seems to suggest a game is afoot.
Being
a little less than cluey, they ignore any of the more threatening undertones to
what is occurring and believing it all to be good fun begin to follow a range
of clues which take the form of nursery rhymes. The first one leads them to a
room with balloons and a pig’s head ! Now personally I would have thought that
the combination of the abusive labels and a pig’s head would have been warning
enough to run a mile, but no, they continue on the chase convinced this is some
thought of competition, maybe even with hidden cameras (they are minor celebs,
of course, and I presume they believe any publicity is good publicity).
A
masked killer clad in industrial black and armed with a meat-hook begins to
hunt the group, it seems the killer has planned the hunt carefully and the
whole building is structured for the game with traps, clues and specially
created environments.
The
whole hunt through the corridors mixed with the psychological games and the
decaying personal relations between the characters plays well. The first
killing is a real jolt and begins what is a roller coaster ride of tension and suspense.
At heart this has been done before, isolated location, psycho killer picking
off his victims one by one, however, the use of the tower block and the
cinematic opportunities it offers – long corridors, darkened offices, traps,
lifts with blades etc work to make this an above average slasher. Certainly the
strange set pieces, weirdly decorated environments, quirky clues and the
nursery rhymes give the film a nearly circus like feel, even the killer looks
like a circus extra.
The
ironic killings such as the “pig” being gutted and hung like a pig and the “two
faced” woman being given two faces also gives Steel Trap an extra dimension
and, of course, offers opportunity for blood, guts and gore.
The
ending is unexpected and continues the humour to the whole film, I won’t spoil
it for you but it is both amusing and strange. It is a bit of a stretch in
terms of plot and while given a convoluted explanation is somewhat
unconvincing, but, heh, this is a slasher film with a perverse sense of humour,
so it isn’t made for meaningful commentary is it ?
Steel
Trap is enjoyable for what it is and offers an intriguing take on the slasher
genre.