Horror Movie Review: Steel Trap (2007)

Steel Trap is a lie. From the cover art that shows a woman who doesn’t actually appear in the film. To the saw blade traps that don’t make an appearance. However, the worst thing of all is the tagline – ‘Surviving each floor is the name of the game’. This is utter rubbish and doesn’t reflect the snooze fest that follows at all.

Set on New Year’s Eve and at a party in a skyscraper, seven unlikable people all get an invite to a more exciting and elusive event. Bored of where they are, they all decide to head off to the floor in question. We have Wade, the rubbish rock star. Celebrity chef Kathy, Nicole who is an ‘agony aunt’ for a newspaper and her boyfriend Robert. Those too have a very odd relationship, I guess it’s supposed to be kooky but it just makes them both impossible to root for.

Then we have TV executive Pamela, former child star Adam and his arm candy, Melanie. The seven don’t know each other and spend most of the movie bickering and accusing each other. Why? Well, their exclusive event isn’t quite what they expected. The first clue is their name cards that gives them unflattering nicknames like ‘two-faced’.

They’ve all been brought here for a reason as they find themselves trapped and stalked by a masked killer (who kind of looks like a gimp). Who wants these seemingly randomly seven dead and why?

Who cares? Steel Trap is such a boring waste of time that drags on and on. Suspenseful? Not in the slightest. Scary? You’re joking, right? Thrilling? Hell no. What we have here is a low-rent attempt at Saw blended with every slasher movie trope going. That description might make it sound interesting but Steel Trap really doesn’t nail any aspect of what it tries to do.

It’s not the fault of any one actor as they all have rubbish characters bur rather the writing as the story is just bland. Half the cast are killed off in the first half of the movie leading to a huge stretch of nothing but talking/arguing. Of course, the plot isn’t strong enough to make this sustainable and by time we’re down to the last few characters, it’s pretty clear who is the killer.

However, their motivations are a bit sketchy. Understandable? To a point but could be seen as a bit of an over-reaction! The reveal might surprise a few but it is hardly satisfying as the journey was just so uninspired. This New Year’s Eve party is nothing but a damp fart rather then an explosion of colour.

[amazon_link asins=’B0016MJ6II’ template=’UseThisOne’ store=’g0e5b-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’06fd8d51-0c8e-11e9-8597-d9a5dfaad663′]