Sunday, July 2, 2023

Steel Trap, Skyscraper Carnage

Vicious!  Dark!  Maybe bordering on, but not quite, torture porn!  Imaginative kills!  Gore!  Babes and hunks in peril!  We have a good one today.  Every character deserves his/her intended fate.  We do get the feeling the slasher may have a good reason he is doing what he's doing.  Yet...we are pulling for our flawed protagonists...they are great looking, after all.  Today we look at 2007's "Steel Trap," directed by Luis Camara.

A New Year's Eve party gets dull a minute after midnight.  Bigwigs from the entertainment industry are at this party held in a soon to be razed skyscraper, now abandoned.  Wade (Mark Wilson) has just sung his rock version of Auld Lang Syne...he's a hunk. Now he smooches with Nicole (Julia Ballard), an advice columnist who hates people.  Nicole's fiancé, Robert (Pascal Longdale) watches in disgust. Wade moves to skank Melanie (Annabella Wallis). Meanwhile, cooking show host Kathy (Georgia Mackenzie) is trying to fend off babe network exec, Pamela (Joanna Bobin).  There are a couple more. As the party gets dull, all receive a mysterious text inviting them to an after-party on the 27th floor.  Stupidly, they all go.

Yep, a killer has lured them all there.  He has a grudge against all of them and begins hunting them.  One by one, the killer abducts them and murders them in the most tortuous means.  The beautiful and beefy will die horribly.  You can guess who will go first...but eventually the not-yet-dead will have to work together and figure out what is going on.  So full of themselves, they may not have the capability to do that and soon suspect one another.  The killer uses their mistrust against them and continues his demented hunt.  Oddly, I found myself cheering for Nicole.  Beautiful and unlikable...she seems to hate everyone.  In fairness to her, her criticisms of her cohorts seems justified.  Blades, wires, power-saws, and meat hooks are just some of the killer's weapons.  Clad in sequins and high heals, the babes are in no position to fight back.  Their guy's?  Filled with testosterone and alcohol, equally as useless.  Still, they do put up an effort and fight to survive.

Will the group ever put their egos and vanity aside and work together to mount a decent fight for their lives?  Will Nicole's beauty be enough to make her survive even though she is so unlikable?  Is one of the party revelers the mad slasher?  Do we need more entertainment industry bigwigs to be put into this very predicament?  Sadistic and cruel, see "Steel Trap," and cheer or gasp at each killing.     

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