Steel Trap (2007) Movie Review
Steel Trap is a film that I have actually been secretly keeping my eye on for well over a year. I happened to catch a glimpse at a promo reel for the film a while back and I was really impressed with what I saw. It came across as a really cool looking Cube meets Saw film with a sense of humor. So in all honesty I had expected quite a bit from this film by the time I actually got to check it out.
Steel Trap takes place on New Years Eve/Day when five members are sent a message beckoning them to join a “secret” party. Two of the invited partiers bring someone along bringing our total up to seven people. The party takes place on the twenty-seventh floor of the huge high rise building. Once there they each receive name tags that label them with different unfavorable names such as “Pig”, “Loser” and “Loverboy” just to name a few. The game starts out innocent enough but that ends very quickly when the games turn deadly and parties begin to drop like flies.
The first thirty minutes of this movie are really enjoyable and it was pretty damn good. But as the movie moved on something happened. It felt as though maybe they had to rush to wrap things up or people just got lazy but it really began to get uneven. The acting was also part of the problem with the film. Either one of the actors would WAY too over the top or just really flat. Some of them held their ground however and made the film worth watching to the very end.
As I mentioned above their is plenty of comparisons being made to this being much like Saw and Cube but I also felt that this was a lot like an old giallo. Which makes more sense since Saw was made with that very idea in mind. Only in this film it is much more relevant because the killer is wearing some tight black gloves and has a funny looking mask. The kills are interesting and make this another reason to give this one a try despite the uneven end of the film.
Something that I found very amusing about this film and what I found was part of the underlying humor in this film is one of the party goers. Her name is Kathy King and she is a celebrity cook. Well it doesn’t take long to realize that she is basically Rachel Ray. RR.. KK. Get it? It is also funny that during her time their she is being bugged by some studio exec to get her own talk show. I’m not sure if they knew it or not when this film was being made but Rachel Ray recently did get a talk show. This along with the way the clues left by the killer added a nice comic relief to the picture.
I really wanted to enjoy this film and the concept was so good. The building could have been used as another character and utilized much more than it was. Unfortunately it just felt more like a vehicle for the killer rather than an actual threat to the people. This on top of some of the uneven acting and some of the ridiculous dialogue left me really disappointed. However I would suggest that you check this movie out. It is worth a rental just to see some of the killings and at least see what a cool concept they really had to play with.
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