Trapped Ashes
Trapped Ashes
R | 12 September 2006 (USA)
Trapped Ashes Trailers

Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.

Reviews
Afouotos

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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AnhartLinkin

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

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Maleeha Vincent

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

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Aryana

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

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wynonasbigbrownbeaver

This movie temporarily lost my sex drive with blood sucking boobs, weird Japanese demonic molestations, a blood sucking succubus, and finally an overgrown tapeworm and the little girl that loved it. I've seen movies like Tales From the Crypt and Tales from the Hood. Trapped Ashes (known as Death House in Japan) clearly fell along these plot lines in the wrap around segment. It is clearly obvious that this was directed by 5 people with the different settings. The short stories were unique but they all amounted for an uneven and mismatched hodgepodge.I could dissect each story line on a different paragraph, but this movie isn't worth much more of my review. But to summarize...Blood Sucking Boob segment - Boobs look nice on Phoebe but it was just weird. Okay I guess.Japanese Demon segment - Started out good, but it clashed with the brief animated features.Best Friends girl segment - Again started out decent, but dragged me to the point of boredom.Tapeworm segment - Should have been a made-for Sci-Fi channel special. Crappy.And finally they all meet their "end" with plot twists that the writer pulled out of his buttocks in order to "piece it all together". I think the biggest flaw was that there wasn't any real consistency in the flow of Trapped Ashes. If this was directed by one or two directors it would have been pulled off a little better. Also, Trapped Ashes had ZERO fear factor in it. Although the Blood Sucking Boob segment was rather disturbing. It had a cheesy Science Fiction feel to it. Overall, I can't really recommend this movie primarily due to its over all sub par execution, it's not atrocious but this definitely is a forgettable film. I can say that the 5 directors at least tried to piece together a creative masterpiece but they fell very short.

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Anthony Pittore III (Shattered_Wake)

A group of tourists on a movie studio lot are locked in the House of Horror and forced to tell 'true' ghost stories about themselves in order to be released. The stories range from plastic surgery nightmares to necrophilia.Mysteriously, this film started filming shortly after Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted was released. . . but, I'll just chalk that up to coincidence. From some of the (former) great minds of horror that have brought us such horrors as Friday the 13th, Altered States, The Lair of the White Worm, The Howling, Piranha, Gremlins, The 'burbs, and. . . umm. . . Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!. . . we're now given Trapped Ashes. It's anthology of four (plus wraparound) stories that vary in quality from the average 'Jibaku' to the pathetic 'Golden Breasts,' we're given quite an array of 'terrifying' tales. Like most anthologies, it's not so much the point of the stories. . . just the stories themselves. However, Trapped Ashes did manage to give a reason for the anthology, so kudos to that. As far as the stories go:The Girl with Golden Breasts: The idea was interesting, like Teeth, but with a different part of the female anatomy. There was some good, cringeworthy gore. . . but that's about it. The acting was amateurish, only accentuated by terrible dialogue (including my most hated error: outwardly spoken inner dialogue). As the story progressed, it became more and more ridiculous, resulting in an almost embarrassing conclusion.Jibaku: In hopes of classing up the film with some Asian flare, the next story headed to Japan. It's fairly disgusting as it studies some weird necrophiliac fantasies and the story is interesting, but it becomes a bit muddled as it goes through and is ultimately forgettable.Stanley's Girlfriend: The third tale, this one about the peril of deceit, is the 'classiest' of the bunch, utilizing mood & suspense more than outward horror. Unfortunately, in an attempt to be slow-burning, it ends up just being downright slow. It's not poorly made, just seems rather unimportant until the final reveal.My Twin – The Worm: Uninvolving is probably the best word to describe this one. It was an interesting parasite-twin story. . . but, I didn't really care all that much and found myself easily distracted.Although I didn't like the tales, I did like the idea for the wraparound. Unfortunately, an anthology made up of lame stories makes for a lame anthology. And, overall, that's what this film turns out to be: pretty lame. If you're heavy into anthologies, give it a look. . . but you can do much better.Final verdict: 4/10.

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dbborroughs

Tales from the Crypt like anthology of a group of people on a studio tour who get trapped in a "psycho" like house and tell ghost stories to escape. Of interest mainly for the directors involved-Joe Dante, Ken Russel, Sean Cunningham, Monte Hellman the film itself is a mixed bag. One story has to do with an actress getting her breasts done, another has to do with a Stanley Kubrick like director and an actor friend, Another has to do with a couple who go to Japan and discover a hanged man and the last has to do with a young woman and her twin..or something. Three of the four stories aren't bad, if over long. One (the girl and her twin) is just fair. The problem is the films don't really add up to much, more so that the sting in each tale is left for the very end of the film where we are told what really happened. Its a weird way to do it, and it almost works, but not quite since any tension from the stories are long gone by the final revelations (There is also a couple of lapses of internal logic as a result of the breaking apart.) Worth a look on a slow Saturday on cable. I do have to say that the Ken Russell "Girl with the Golden Breasts" tale is very amusing and a vast improvement over his direct to video home movies. I especially loved his cameo.

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dschmeding

I don't know why but I used to be a huge fan of Creepshow and Tales from the crypt although the later series were rather lame. "Trapped Ashes" is very much in this tradition and features 4 horror shorts bound together in a surrounding plot of 2 couples and 2 solo people going on a sightseeing on a Hollywood movie site and getting stuck in an hold horror house with an old guy who leads them around. Turns out they can only leave if each tells their most frightening personal story... so here we go... Story 1 is about an actress who doesn't get any new jobs and decides to get a boob job. Now after her life turns around for the positive she soon realizes that her breast are vampire boobies feeding on human blood which doesn't go to well for her lovers. This story is pretty bizarre and trashy and captures the spirit of old "Tales from the crypt" stories best. Its totally idiotic but the end is so over the top its fun. Story 2 is a ghost-story about a couple moving to Japan where the woman is seduced by a monk who dies and takes her to hell where she turns into a succubus. Her husband soon learns he has to free her from there by feeding her a spell. The story is OK, but as frightening or thrilling as a Sesamestreet Episode. At least you get some naked shots and some nice animation sequences of old Japanese paintings which work pretty well. Story 3 is pretty much nothing leading nowhere. An actor and his best friend a scriptwriter regularly meet for chess until a girl appears. Soon the scriptwriter disappears and the actor begins a love affair to find out years later that the girl is some kind of ghost/witch/vampire... honestly I couldn't care less because the episode is boring and makes no sense. Story 4 is another strange one about a girl who grows up in her mothers womb along with a tapeworm and lives with a strange desire for collecting food for her "twin". When she is treated badly by her stepmother the "twin" takes revenge.What most of the stories suffer from is incredibly long passages of introducing of characters and that is way stretched and often even unnecessary for the plod. So when the action starts most of the time is up and there is not too much time for the horror to happen. Like most of those story collections there is some bad apples in there and I couldn't recommend this average movie just for the vampire boobies and the finale. This is just for real die hard fans of horror shorts... the slow ghost movies won't be too interesting for neither "Tales..." Fans nor others because they don't lead nowhere. Too bad...

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