Forgotten Like Mines: Trapped (1988)

Trapped (1988) (AKA "Trapped Alive", "Forever Mine")
Rating: **
Starring:  Jay Leggett, Cameron Mitchell, Sullivan Hester

Delivering very little of the bloody stuff and titled so simple that it can be easily confused with something else or forgotten altogether, it’s no surprise this rare notch of a slasher movie is so obscure.

A pair of wealthy ladies were driving home from a Christmas party when they're taken hostage by a trio of escaped convicts from a nearby prison. They drive high up to the snowy mountains as the convicts plan their next step, but end up crashing their car into the mines and find themselves trapped inside.

All the while, a no-nonsense deputy somehow trails the missing car and decides to climb down into the same mines with hopes of capturing the criminals himself. His path crosses with the group and it seems everything was going to be okay until they realize that something else is inside the mines with them. Something awfully hungry.

Plotwise, Trapped (1988) can be considered as one of the few forerunners to other crime-gone-wrong slasher movies like Malevolence (2004), Botched (2007), The Cottage (2008) or even Trackman (2007), where criminals on the run find themselves siding with their own hostages as things go way down South when an even more dangerous threat starts to thin down their numbers. The story of Trapped (1988) is precisely this, only with cheap sets and hammy acting littered through this forgotten B-flick, which wouldn't be all that bad if the payoff's anywhere enjoyable.

The first half plays more like a straight hostage thriller only taking place inside an obviously fake cavernous mines and with a cast of bland one-to-two dimensional characters. Most of this act centers on one criminal taking advantage over the girls in the most nonthreatening manner, taking away any sense of dread, while one cohort looks for a way  out and the other is rotting dead from the crash. The overacting and weird direction can be entertaining, but the lighting in these parts is so awful that you could barely make anything out and it takes so long that by the time the horror bits happen, any flames of excitement has died out.

Sadly, Trapped (1988) went further downhill once the slasher finally shows his deformed rear; looking like Madman Marz from Madman (1982) and having the same man-eating origins of Harry Warden of My Bloody Valentines (1981), the killer here uses a claw-hoist to murder his victims, a rather unique yet clumsy choice of weapon. Unfortunately, with so little characters alive to pick off, this killing spree is slim in number and it isn't too exciting as the killer spends most of his time literally looking down on them from the upper mines. Adding further insult, this man-monster gets killed off rather easily about five to ten minutes before the ending credits came, giving way to one overly long monologue from a twist reveal character explaining the killer’s origins.

It all ends with a bittersweet finale that’s sappy all through with one very confusing ending shot that makes very little sense. Honestly, I really wanted to enjoy Trapped (1988) since its simple idea holds a lot of potential to be an effective claustrophobic slasher, but with its high dose of cheddar and little to none horror action, the end product is an underwhelming rarity that may have deserved its obscurity.

Bodycount:
1 male had his head crushed
1 male crashed through a windshield, dies from wounds
1 male pierced through the chest with a claw-hoist, cannibalized
1 female shot on the head
1 male stabbed on the mouth with an improvised spear
1 male and 1 female killed in a cave-in
Total: 7