[Trapped Ashes]
Plot:Seven strangers on a Hollywood movie studio tour are trapped inside an infamous House of Horror and forced to tell their most terrifying stories to get out alive.

Cast:Jayce Bartok, Henry Gibson, Lara Harris, Scott Lowell, Dick Miller, Michèle-Barbara Pelletier, John Saxon, Rachel Veltri, Richard Ian Cox, Glynis Davies, Scott Heindl, Rob deLeeuw, Mina E. Mina, Winston Rekert, Ken Russell.

My Thoughts:Average but likeable attempt at horror-anthology.

Review:Horror anthologies are few and far between these days. The last one released was "Creepshow 3" last year. And it goes without saying, it was pretty pathetic. Now in 2008.....we get "Trapped Ashes", a horror-anthology film from directors Sean Cunningham, Joe Dante, John Gaeta, Monte Hellman, and Ken Russell. The film features four segments/stories, each which strong horror elements and some intriguing twists at the end of each one.

The tales involve a girl who gets more than she bargained for when she undergoes breast enhancement surgery in "The Girl With The Golden Breasts", a screenwriter who sleeps with his best friends girlfriend who's more than meets the eye in "Stanley's Girlfriend", a girl who has to share her life with a tapeworm in "My Twin, The Worm", and a woman who is wooed by an incubus while in Japan with her husband in "Jibaku". While neither story brings many chills or extreme thrills....they all offer intriguing plots, and a decent level of entertainment value.

Which is about all you can ask for pretty much in a straight-to-dvd effort with mostly unknown actors, except for a few veterans such as John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street), and Henry Gibson as the mysterious tour guide. The acting is decent enough, and the way the stories are set up is pretty creative. A group of strangers are taken on a Hollywood tour and end up at an old Hollywood attraction. A haunted house at the top of a hill. While there, they get lost and can't find their way out, or does someone want to keep them there?

Either way, the tour guide manages to convince members of the group to each tell their most terrifying life stories. Nothing made up, but things that have indeed happened to them in real life. This makes the picture alot more realistic in it's approach at the horror anthology blueprint. While the stories are certainly outlandish in their own unique ways, having the main characters tell their own stories, instead of making something up was a smart and interesting way of doing things.

Especially considering most horror anthologies have characters in stories or tell stories based on folklore, an urban legend, or some wild tale they overheard from a friend or relative. There's not alot of blood and gore in "Trapped Ashes", instead...the film relies heavily on the weirdness and gross out aspects of horror. In that regard, it'll appeal to the more diverse horror fan who can appreciate all types of horror films beyond the splatter-stuff, while also appeasing the horror fan who likes the nastiness and weird aspects of the genre.

For example, "Girl With The Golden Breasts" is more funny and gross, while "Jibaku" is the creepiest story of the four....but "My Twin, The Worm" is certainly the weirdest. Some stories hit on these aspects more than others, but all of the stories are very interesting to watch, and for the most part....well written. If there's one weak link I can think of with "Trapped Ashes" foru tales, it would be "Stanley's Girlfriend". Hellman's tale which seemed incomplete and didn't turn out like I felt it should've.

The movie has a very clever twist ending, which in itself is an answer to a few other twist endings, or atleast twist-inspired cliffhangers of each story. The ending has that "just when you thought you had it all figured out" overtone to it, yet at the same time....if you pick up on a few things you might be able to see it coming from a mile away. I have to say, I didn't though. So with that in mind, I'd say the writers did a well enough job from keeping the final surprise....a surprise....atleast until the end.

"Trapped Ashes" isn't a perfect horror-anthology overall, it's certainly not up to the level of a "Creepshow", or even "Creepshow 2". But it relies more on psychological horror and black humor, and in that regard...it's a slightly above-average horror anthology which most horror fans should enjoy for the most part.

Positives:Clever twist ending, intriguing and interesting tales, relatively sharp black-humor, a few likeable characters

Negatives:Some of the acting needed work, and "Stanley's Girlfriend" needed an ending change I felt.

Overall:Two stars out of four.





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