Evil Dead Trap

Evil Dead Trap (Shiryō no wana) Directed By Toshiharu Ikeda (1988).

   Nami (played by Miyuki Ono) the news anchor antagonizes her audience by daring them to send in a hilarious video bordering on snuff,Bob Saget tried this at one point with frightening results. She receives a Videodrome inspired tape of a girl tied up and tortured, ending with a wicked eyeball puncture that includes Nami's image spliced on the end. She takes her media crew riding around in the country side, avoiding stray dogs and enjoying burgers. They all end up at a sinister abandoned factory. The Phantasm-esque/ Tubular Bells, piano theme is pretty great! 

   A cataract sunglasses wearing villain appears in the shadows, is he responsible for the tape? Is he leading Nami and her team to a trap (a copyright infringement ℅ Sam Raimi's Lawyer's style Trap)!? Not sure yet.

   It's not very clear to me why they are lurking around the abandoned factory and they should leave, but of course they stay! None of them are tracking anyone down, they just figure that "Hey this is the scary factory from that snuff video, Let's stay awhile!"
   Two of them even have sex (Wait this is Evil Dead not Friday The 13th)!                          
   There are some long shaky tracking shots like the invisible Candarian demon from said Raimi flick, but other than that this film is pretty original. 

   This factory has its share of creepy crawlies, including maggots that drop from the ceiling (Suspiria style) and snakes that seem to grunt instead of hiss. 

   One girl named Rei (played by Hitomi Kobayashi) is impaled with a bunch of sharp steel rods that shoot through the walls and kill. This is the type of media crew that apparently solve murders on their own and entertain the notion of meeting the snuff maniac instead of involving the police. 

  The snuff killer has an assistant who exclaims "I like to kill slowly, because its fun"! He has ugly sex with one of the girls in the backseat and they are both violently killed by someone in the shadows.

50 Bucks for that Poncho, That's outrageous!

  We see glimpses of the killer by way of a strobe light, he wears a full poncho raincoat with a face mask, similar to the uniform of The Prowler (1980). He uses spools of wire,steel rods and totally unconventional weapons for a slasher flick. 

  The killer confesses to having a split personality, one minute he's dressed in a suit, drinking from a flask looking for the real killer (like O.J.?), the next he dons the poncho and severs limbs. He's very skilled at setting steel wire traps that trigger weapons to detonate and at one point a poor female victim's head is crushed in a vice! 

  The killer leads her down a hallway and keeps saying a child is responsible for all the carnage. She also seems to know he's the killer, but doesn't bother to stop him, maybe she thinks a baby could be responsible and oddly enough she's not far off!

Pizza The Hutt Jr! 

   She's willing to kill all of her friends to get a news story like an Asian Nancy Grace! The ending is mind bludgeoning and I won't give it away, but it's really unexpected to say the least!

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