FightOwensFight Duped! Yeah, totally duped... You know Dimension Extreme has given us all some really great stuff, but they have also given us some really, really, REALLY bad stuff - Steep Trap falls into the latter. Now coming from someone who is very much into the horror genre and can usually find some shining moments in the worst of the worst gore or scare flicks, I really can't think of one nice thing to say about this one except for - It was so bad I laughed a few times... But not in the way a Troma movie is so bad it made you laugh. No, no, no, Steel Trap was just really bad. At a upscale New Years party on the top of an abandoned high rise, several extremely annoying individuals are invited down a few floors to where the "real party is at". The unlikable ensemble quickly find out that this is no party at all as one by one they all begin to suffer very uninventive and forgettable ends to their miserable lives. They all must play the killer's game till the end or suffer an ill fate at the hands of a truly laughable silver masked maniac. Horror fans, do yourself a favor and skip out on this one. There are no inventive deaths, no well built suspense, no likable characters, atrocious acting - good and evil, and worst of all the dialouge is so forced it will embarrass you to no end.

Argemaluco I think that a filmmaker who decides to make a slasher flick has two choices : having a lot of faith on the screenplay and to trust that he found a new perspective for making that formula interesting or making a completely mercenary film which is full of clichés for finally making a cheap movie.The crappy film Steel Trap belongs to the second style.The slasher films became popular thanks to Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th and,since of that,we have seen hundred of movies with similar structures,characters and story.The details change,so every slasher movie tries to be different by using a curious location or a new mask,just to mention two examples.I do not pretend to find a lot of originality on slasher films but what I pretend to find is even the minimum effort for giving the known formula a special element,making it interesting and entertaining.Steel Trap could have chosen that difficult point but,instead of risking,director and co-screenwriter Luis Cámara and co-screenwriter Gabrielle Galanter wasted that opportunity so Steel Trap is a tedious experience with an extremely weak screenplay,repulsive characters,a boring and generic killer without any personality and a forced and arbitrary ending.I usually do not like to criticize an independent film from my favourite genre but,even on some incompetent works (like Return to Sleepaway Camp),I appreciate some energy and enthusiasm which on some way compensate some fails of the movie.But Steel Trap does not even have that.Plus,to add more negative things,Cámara's direction is completely insipid.In other words,it seems nobody involved on this movie was really interested on it.The characters are so repulsive that I was glad when the killer started to kill them.Steel Trap is a very crappy film.This is one of that movies in which I feel I really lost the time with it and that's the worst sin a movie can make.If you wanna see a very good modern slasher flick,I recommend you the Norwegian movie Fritt Vilt.Skip Steel Trap,a very bad horror film.

Scarecrow-88 A New Years Party on the top of a plush abandoned building. A group of spoiled success types(..rock singer, newspaper columnist, television exec, celebrity cook, entertainment lawyer, high-maintenance slut)find themselves trapped in the isolated wings of the abandoned building after following a riddle to a properly prepared party by a psycho. The psycho haunts the rooms, hidden behind his prey who wander aimlessly trying to survive as he captures them one by one when certain individuals make the mistake of getting separated. Booby traps await equipped with riddles. A list containing the names of the group given an invite are labeled with specific titles(Kathy-loser, Nicole-heartless, Adam-pig, etc)and when each victim is dispatched a red X is marked through them. The killer's weapon of choice is a hook. But, other methods of execution include used an ax splitting the forehead, end of a knife stabbing a hole in the neck, a sliced throat, heart removed from a chest with it beating in the killer's hand(..not elaborated in grisly detail, the director uses sounds, only displaying the beating heart), the back of a victim's head crushed repeatedly into the floor during a scuffle, and a vicious attack with a meat tenderizer. The gore-murders lack bite and slasher fans who watch this genre passionately will find them merely adequte. This is a rather tedious slasher with a lot of the film showing this group trying to find an exit while bickering with each other. The characters like to insult each other constantly, fighting often over superficial stuff..their antics are at times playful, other instances nasty. Regardless, the killer couldn't plunge the hook into their gullets fast enough for me..but, alas, we spend a great deal of time longer with these sleazy egomaniacs which is unfortunate. There's of course a twist(..does the killer have a partner in crime?), but "Steel Trap" is little more than a tired Saw retread set in a building that lacks atmosphere, no matter how often the lights blink on and off. The killer should be creepy, but he's merely a walking kill-device whose motives for committing these acts is embarrassingly uninspired. Some slasher fans might get a kick out of who's *really* behind this mind trap, as the film closes with a warped comic tone mimicking cooking shows. The riddles used in the film are corny instead of witty, leading the characters in a maze of doors and rooms with the killer knowing exactly where to strike almost at all times.

Ken Maskrey I agree with much of the previous stuff...bad writing, dialog, etc., but what I really found most shocking was how ugly the cast was. I mean...in a horror? Don't you really want to see pretty people being killed, maimed, raped, tortured, etc.... Here, it looks like they went around to all the plastic surgeons' offices in town and took all the "befores" and threw them in the movie. Old ones at that. Everyone appeared to be at least in their 30s.***** Spoiler -- sort of ***** That "prettiest girl in the room" line just killed me!!! I think it wasn't as much an exclusive party as where the rest of the town hid out all the ugly people.