Hell's Trap (1990)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

not as good as all the hype

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Talk about a blast opening, "Trampa Infernal" has the coolest opening credits ever! Guided by musical tones that are perhaps slightly inspired by the legendary "Friday the 13th" theme (Tsh-Tsh-Tsh-Ha-Ha-Ha), the names of the lead players appear on screen split up in giant syllables. Promising intro of a totally obscure Mexican slasher/backwoods survival thriller and it only becomes cooler with every minute that passes. Two extremely competitive and testosterone-overloaded paintball enemies challenge each other to the ultimate showdown in a sleazy bar. According to a newspaper article, there's a savage bear loose in the nearby woods and it already killed multiple of the hunters that tried to catch it. The challenge includes that whoever kills the bear will be declared the ultimate macho hero with the biggest set of balls. Upon arrival, however, it quickly becomes obvious they're not up against a bear but a bewildered and utterly maniacal war veteran with quite an arsenal of weapons in his hideout and numerous combat tricks up his sleeve. After a whole decade of tame and derivative American slashers, this early 90's Mexican effort looks and feels very refreshing and vivid. The formula is simplistic but efficient, the lead characters are plausible enough and the building up towards the confrontations with the sadist killer is reasonably suspenseful. The maniac must have been a fan of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, as he also uses a self-made glove with sharp knives attached to it and a white mask to cover his face. The murders are pleasingly nasty and barbaric, which I was really hoping for since the awesome aforementioned opening sequences, and waste a whole lot of gratuitous blood. The forestry setting and particularly the camouflaged booby traps are joyously spectacular. "Trampa Internal" is a Mexican slasher/survival sleeper hit that comes warmly recommended to the fans of the genre.

Four macho rough'n'tumble guys and three sexy gals venture into a remote woodland area to hunt for a bear. The motley coed group runs afoul of crazed Vietnam veteran Jesse (an effectively creepy portrayal by Alberto Mejia Baron), who not surprisingly doesn't take kindly to any strangers trespassing on his terrain. Director/co-writer Pedro Galindo III relates the gripping story at a steady pace, creates a good deal of nerve-rattling tension, and delivers a fair amount of graphic gore with the brutal murder set pieces (a nasty throat slicing and a hand being blown off with a shotgun rate as the definite gruesome splatter highlights). The capable cast all give solid performances, with especially praiseworthy work by Pedro Fernandez as the nice, humane Nacho, Edith Gonzalez as the feisty Alejandra, Charly Valentino as the amiable Charly, and Tono Mauri as antagonistic jerk Mauricio. Better still, both yummy blonde Marisol Santacruz and lovely brunette Adriana Vega supply some tasty eye candy by wearing skimpy bathing suits. Antonio de Anda's slick, agile cinematography, the breathtaking sylvan scenery, Pedro Plascencia's robust, shuddery, stirring score, the well-developed characters, and the pleasingly tight'n'trim 76 minute running time further enhance the overall sound quality of this bang-up horror/action hybrid winner.

After hearing that several hunters were killed by a "bear", a group of macho Mexican mullet-heads and their fashion-victim girlfriends go off in the woods to hunt for it. The "bear" though turns out to be a creepy-looking homicidal guy with self-fashioned finger claws. Due to the villain's weapons some would probably tag this movie as a rip-off of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", but it is actually more similar to rural massacre/slasher movies like "Just Before Dawn" or "Hunter's Blood", or even, given the whole homicidal "bear" thing, "Girls' Nite Out". The problem though isn't that this movie rips-off any American movie all that much, but conversely that it deviates too much from the formula of a successful slasher movie and turns into a particularly brain-dead Latino sub-Rambo action movie about halfway through.The killer is effectively scary-looking, but instead of being content to pick his victims off one-by-one in typical slasher-movie fashion, he tries to take them all on, even though there's five of them and they have rifles while he has finger-knives. But then, out of nowhere he whips out a sub-machine gun, and the movie descends rapidly into complete stupidity. It isn't just that I personally hate action movies (which I certainly do), but the filmmakers don't really have the budget to effectively make even a low-budget American-style action movie.There's also a sorry lack of gratuitous nudity. Mexico is a slightly more conservative country than the US, but if you've ever spent five minutes in a Mexican strip club, you know it's not that hard to find pretty girls to take their clothes off for a little bit of money. The two best-looking girls here though do little than model their 80's-style bikinis before they are violently dispatched, and its the other homelier, more portly girl who gets kidnapped by the killer. I wouldn't complain about this though if the movie had otherwise lived up to its initial promise. This movie isn't entirely bad, but it is pretty disappointing.

"Trampa Infernal" is your typical Mexican slasher. Starring Pedrito Fernàndez. In the likes of "Friday the 13th" (which was a highly influential movie for Mèxican Horror), seven campers enter the woods in order to find a bear that has been eating campers. Little do they know that "someone" is lurking in the area just to kill them one by one. Also, in the likes of "The Prowler" the killer slaughters the unfortunate campers in some nice death scenes. Not very gory but still deliver. Who will survive at the end? Could Pedrito save the day? Could it be that his bad hair day means bad luck? How did he know how to fire a rifle?Watch "Trampa Infernal" for pure entertainment. This is an average slasher flick. The settings are somehow creepy. Mexicans really know how to create creepy atmospheres. The score is not so good but you can't ask for much as many 80's flicks used horrible soundtracks. The acting is okay. Pedrito is always good in his roles. Edith Gonzàlez and Marisol Santacruz look very hot and deliver a good performance. Also, Charly Valentino delivers a horrible, putrid performance but it's Charly Valentino! so he can't do wrong. The killer is a poor low budget version of Michael Myers and you can't help but feel sorry for him. Recommended for extremely low budget slashers.