Trapped Alive
Trapped Alive (1988/1993) Rewatch? ❎
I think this may well have the single worst seduction scene in a film I’ve seen in absolutely ages. I have seen plenty of implausible and (very) badly done sex scenes in my years watching films, very few I’d put in the same bracket as this one. It’s hilariously bizarre and comes complete with mining talk (yes, there is a remark about shafts) just in case the whole scene wasn’t already bizarre enough.
So, yeah, it’s a film that runs on implausibly strange things happening. Like people getting kidnapped by escaping criminals who then drive onto a sinkhole over a mine and get eaten by an underground cannibal. That sort of strangely implausible. Nothing makes a great deal of sense really, best not to dwell on any of it.
As a fair few cheapies around the late eighties/early nineties do, it’s got a very cobbled together who cares if it works thing going on. Sort of thing where it feels like it’s not so much been edited as someone threw some film in a big bin and everyone took turns gluing random bits together to see what happens and then, to go some way to make it feel coherent, layered a heavy synth soundtrack over it hoping nobody would notice.
Everyone is kind of very well manicured despite them being in a dirty, collapsing cave (except the villains, they’re allowed to be messy), the dialogue is largely just nonsense and the story non existent. It all feels very one note and nothing really either drags it completely into the gutter or, on the other end of things, shines in any particular way.
I swear at one point the soundtrack drifted into a wonky synth rendition of “We Three Kings” for no apparent reason as well.
You can certainly see why nobody was in a rush to get this one on the shelves.
There’s a whole load of films like this and I’ll admit, they’re all a pretty indistinguishable experience from film to film for me. About the only way my brain can distinguish them is usually by how long some people spend in various states of undress. There’s sort of thirty of these things for every Trancers or something.
When working in video shops all those years ago, I knew people who absolutely huffed this stuff up and loved it but it’s never really been my cup of tat. I like a bit less hairspray with my cheapies.
And that’s pretty much how I felt about Trapped Alive by the end of it! Not really my cup of tat! There wasn’t much for me to enjoy but there wasn’t sod all either. I did like the (all too brief) shock shots. The cannibalised corpse of one of the criminals is pretty neatly nasty and it does have a prolonged scene of another one getting gored then eaten and the synths are suitably loud and over the top so it’s not a complete write off.
It passes an hour and a half harmlessly enough but no, not especially my bag. Fans of late eighties, early nineties straight to video may find more to love than me. No regrets about watching it, no hurry to watch it again either tho.