aka SHIRÔ NO WANA
Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda
Evil Dead Trap is an intriguing curiosity that draws on a myriad of western influences, and unusually for a Japanese horror film makes no reference too indigenous traditions. The fact that the screenplay by Takashi Ishii could have been set anywhere gives the film a strange lack of cultural specificity which only goes to emphasise the artifice of the whole proposition. Ishii went on to much more interesting things as a writer and director, films such as the Takeshi Kitano starring Gonin (1995) and the unusual rape/revenge thriller Freeze Me (2000). The director Toshiharu Ikeda remains something of an obscurity in the west, Evil Dead Trap being the only film of his that had reasonable trans-national distribution. It is incredibly easy to see why it achieved this. The title itself is a reference to Sam Raimi’s irreverent gore soaked debut, and the film abounds with the echoes of other filmmakers and films. Perhaps the most notable influence here is the hyper-stylised baroque fantasies of Dario Argento. This imitation includes maggots falling from the ceiling onto an unsuspecting woman’s head, the use of red, green, and blue filters, and the irritating repetition of a central musical theme courtesy of Tomohiko Kira. Unfortunately shoddy prints have lessened the effect of Ikeda’s colour schemes, but despite the derivative nature of the film, Evil Dead Trap is still highly inventive, and perhaps more importantly for cult enthusiasts, incredibly gory.
