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A group of six
people have received VIP tickets to a
tour through the old Hollywood sets. They arrive at an
old house which was apparently the set for some campy
horror flick called "Hysteria" and ask for permission
to enter the house. Soon enough they find themselves
trapped in one of the rooms and they end up sharing
ghost stories with each other.
Anthologies. What an odd little subgenre. Several short
stories merged into one movie. Was someone just too
lazy to make a feature length movie and figured "Hey,
maybe we can make several short ones instead and sell
it as a feature length film!" or how did it all really
start? Well, they're here and they're here to stay.
For better and for worse I might add. Horror anthologies
are rarely great, they're usually a mixed bag with some
decent stories and some very forgettable ones. This is
also the case with Trapped Ashes - a typical horror
anthology which doesn't offer many surprises. As usual
I will review each segment on its own so here goes.
The first story is called "The Girl With The Golden
Breasts" - and no, everything her boobs grace doesn't
turn to gold (though wouldn't that be so cool?). It's
actually about a wannabe-actress who gets a boob-job,
only instead of putting silicone in her breasts, the
doctor puts in something else... Soon enough her nipples
start to feed off of flesh. Yep, it's the horror version
of "Teeth" (oh come on, Teeth wasn't horror... no it
wasn't! It's an okay movie but it's not horror and
I don't care what all of you say). Anyway, this segment
is pretty entertaining in its own campy way. A perfect
story for an anthology as it would've never survived as
a feature length movie. The effects are relatively good
and we get a decent amount of gore. Yep, this movie was
off to a pretty decent start actually, and I wasn't
even planning on checking this one out.
The second story is called "Jibaku" (I don't think that
they're aware of the fact that hell is spelled Jigoku
in Japanese) and revolves around a middle-aged couple
who go to Japan for a much needed vacation. After finding
a dead man hanging from a tree, the woman in the
relationship starts having sexual dreams about the
dead man's corpse. You know, this one wasn't all bad
but perhaps a bit too corny for me. Felt like it would
have been perfect for Creepshow 3 or something. They've
cleverly used anime animations to cover up the fact
that they couldn't afford to do everything in CGI and
it works fairly well. Still, not the best of stories.
Next up is "Stanley's Girlfriend", a very enticing
horror story which could very well have made a great
addition to the Masters of Horror show. It's about
two young directors which of one, Stanley, meets a
mysterious but ever so gorgeous woman. Naturally not
all is well with her though. This story was subtle,
entertaining and stylish. Definitely the best one out
of the bunch. If only the climax had been a bit better.
Finally we have the most repulsive horror story of the
bunch - "My Twin, The Worm". Yuck, I hate tapeworms,
they're nasty things and I'm scared to death of them.
It's about a pregnant woman who has a tapeworm living
inside of her that she can't kill because it may cause
her to miscarry. Yup, disgusting stuff to say the least.
This could have been a lot more disturbing though had
they only made it a bit more realistic. I really think
that a feature length horror flick about tapeworms
could freak everyone out. Heck, even a documentary
would do it for me.
Trapped Ashes is a pretty decent flick as you can see
with nice production values and four (well, technically
five) competent and fairly amusing short stories. It's
very forgettable and won't go down in history as one
of the better horror anthologies that have been made
but it certainly isn't one of the worst ones. It's
a tad bit ludicrous and corny for my taste but if you
like Troma productions... well, let's just say that
Trapped Ashes is like a higher budget and classier
version of any Troma production. Definitely worth a
rent but not a disaster if your local video store
doesn't carry it.
We get some gore in here (and lots of nudity) including
breasts opened up, a bloody corpse, some blood splatter
and not much more.
Campy and corny, fits the movie perfectly.
A decent time-killer and definitely easy to sit through
(as are most horror anthologies). Definitely not very
memorable though but if you're looking for a surprisingly
entertaining horror flick, this one may be worth checking
out. I can see why it was sent straight to DVD though,
not one for the mainstream crowds.
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