Steel Trap | DVD Review

The Dimension Extreme DVD releases usually live up to the moniker, with biting satire (Teeth, pun intended), outrageous action (D.O.A.), horror/comedy (Black Sheep), and straight horror (Inside being of particular note), but every once in a while they’re guilty of releasing films that don’t live up to the “Extreme” title. Steel Trap is one of those misfires, but at least part of the blame has to be placed on the marketing of it.

The DVD cover features an image that has absolutely nothing to do with the film, and makes it seem like Saw II-lite. It makes one wonder if the publicity team even watched all of Steel Trap before deciding how to market it. Sure, it starts off like a survival horror flick, with various guests at a posh New Years’ Eve party being invited by text-message to a private party on the 27th floor of an abandoned media building. Once they arrive, they see name tags with a descriptive character trait for each guest (“pig”, “heartless”, “two-faced”, etc.) and are informed that they will be playing a game (sound familiar?), with each of the guests facing a fate having something to do with the word on their name tag. This must be where the aforementiond marketing team seems to have stopped watching, though, because after this fairly strong set-up, Steel Trap devolves into a rather run-of-the-mill slasher pic, and a mediocre one at that. Even with the rather ominous hints, the characters seem to take forever to realize what’s going on and simply move around the 27th floor waiting to get picked off. The script, by Gabrielle Galanter and director Luis Camara, could have used a few more revisions to iron out some inconsistencies, but perhaps the biggest problem of Steel Trap is the cast: for a movie about an American New Years Eve party, you would think the casting directors would have at least looked stateside for their principal actors. Instead, this film, shot in Germany, has a largely British cast of newcomers and little-known actors who, aside from having to deliver some poorly-written dialogue, also have to struggle with sounding American. It also doesn’t help that not one of the main characters is likeable.

Another problem is that with this being more or less a typical slasher movie, there really isn’t enough blood and gore for the purists and hard-core horror fans. With that being said, though, Luis Camara does show some promise in his feature directorial debut. Steel Trap has excellent production values for an indie horror film, and the camera-work is solid and creative, especially during the death scenes. Camara has a future as a horror director, just so long as he doesn’t write or cast his own films.

Steel Trap is presented in a clean and crisp widescreen transfer, with decent sound distribution through a 5.1 speaker system.

Audio Commentary by Director Luis Camara
Camara does his best here, and the commentary is not bad. It’s just that, with him being alone, it can get a little tedious and somewhat boring at times. He certainly loves what he does and points out many of his fondest memories about making the film, but most of what he talks about is addressed in the much better making of featurette.

The Making of Steel Trap
As ho-hum a film as Steel Trap is, this 40-minute featurette is actually a fascinating look at the trials and tribulations (not to mention loads of fun) involved in making a low-budget horror film. Un-cooperative building custodians, a set with no heating and only one bathroom, special-effects people having to ply their trade in the basement of a local shop. We even get a glimpse at the wrap party, where Camara dons a monkey suit. For all the trouble they had making Steel Trap you can feel the love that everyone had toward the project and you get a sense that they would do it all over in a heartbeat. Of course, all of this was filmed before anyone actually saw the final product, though.

With the title and DVD cover photo promising a Saw-like game of cat and mouse, fans of survival-horror are bound to be disappointed. While not quite “Steel Crap”, the film is nothing more than a passable horror/thriller that isn’t even bloody enough to please slasher fans. Put it this way: it says a lot about a film when the best part of a DVD is the making-of featurette.

Movie rating – 1.5

Disc Rating – 2.5