Evil Dead Trap, originally known in Japan as Shiryo no Wana (死霊の罠, literal translation being Trap of the Death Spirits), revolves a late-night Japanese reporter named Nami that receives a Snuff Film in the mail among the various other videos fans send in to appear on her show. Wanting to uncover the perpetrator herself, Nami grabs her coworkers/friends to the abandoned factory where the video was sent from. Of course, they all eventually end up getting killed.
The film was followed by a sequel Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki in 1992. The 1993 film Evil Dead Trap 3: Broken Love Killer is actually The Brutal Insanity of Love, an unrelated film released internationally as a part of the series since it was directed by Toshiharu Ikeda, who did the first one. Actor Shirô Sano also appears in both the second and the third films, albeit as entirely different characters.
Not to be confused with the Evil Dead franchise.
This film provides examples of:
- Abandoned Area: The main location of the film is an abandoned industrial complex once used as a military base.
- Booby Trap: Nami is led on to find the captured Mako, who is set to die by a crossbow tied to a door handle. It fails, but there's also a second trap connected to a tripwire...
- Chekhov's Gun: Daisuke's lighter. He frequently takes it out and lets Nami hold it at one point. He later "returns" it to her, leading her to realize that Hideki isn't really dead...
- Chest Burster: Hideki leaves his hosts by bursting through their chests.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Having sex in an old, abandoned army building with dirt floors? There's no way your clothes are gonna stay clean.
- The entire investigation counts as this. A group of women (and one basically-useless man) drive out to an abandoned, isolated industrial complex to search for a man who might very well be a killer. They split up immediately upon arriving, bring nothing with which to defend themselves or even record their findings (and only have one single flashlight and camera), and wander through potentially unstable or dangerous structures with zero sense of self-preservation. It can be said that this is a low-funded crew and only Nami believes the snuff film was real, but nevertheless, it's no wonder at all why the situation went down as it did.
- Downer Ending: Nami survives the ordeal, but at the very end it is revealed that Hideki survived by hiding inside her.
- Eye Scream : The snuff film that Nami receives has a very gruesome shot of the nameless victim's eyes being slit open with a knife
- Final Girl: In the end, Nami is the only person alive from her crew.
- Freudian Excuse: Though the full motivation is never fully explained, Daisuke seems to have loathed his mother (who kept him in isolation on the military base), while Hideki was obsessed with her, and they attempted to lure Nami to the base due to her resemblance and potential as a possible replacement.
- Giallo: Not officially, but Western critics have compared the film favorably.
- Gratuitous Rape: The killer's prisoner has been held captive for presumably days or weeks at minimum, was traumatized by the torturous death of his girlfriend, and has been promised his freedom if he kills trespassers. Despite this, he chooses to rape Rie first, such a gratuitous scene that it almost seems that the killer dispatches him simply because he couldn't even get his one job right.
- Hope Spot: Rie escapes back to the van, opens the gate, and begins to drive off to get help... only to be attacked by a mook hiding in the backseat.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: The night before the events, Kondo apparently made a move on Rei, but was too drunk to get an erection. During the investigation itself, he gets his fire back and makes quick work to make the most of it.
- Mutants: The main killer is a mutant baby named Hideki who lives within his twin brother and can come and go as he pleases.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Rei gets killed by being impaled with metal bars that come through the floor and the wall behind her.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Daisuke fires his revolver at the killer without hitting him a single time. Subverted when it's revealed that he wasn't actually targeting anyone all along.
- Left Hanging: Who gave the assistant Daisuke's lighter to gift to Nami? His body is a pile of ashes at this point, and Hideki is still the size of a newborn.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Due to the size of the area, the crew splits up upon arriving, and then splinter off from those groups, making it easy for the killer to pick them off.
- Murderers Are Rapists: The prisoner instructed with killing trespassers decides to rape Rie before attempting to kill her.
- Neck Snap: Rie is killed when the murderer drags her over the top of the van with a wire noose, causing her to land on her head.
- No Name Given: The mysterious man Nami meets and who ends up being one-half of the killer isn't named in the film, but is listed in the cast as Daisuke Muraki.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Daisuke appears both as a fully-disguised killer and a casually-dressed civilian sometimes within minutes of each other, despite the obvious prep time needed to change outfits and move across the base. This could be handwaved due to the vague insinuations of Hideki having supernatural powers that he can tap into, but otherwise it makes little sense.
- Off with His Head!: Kondo is Killed Offscreen, leading Nami to discover his decapitated head.
- Pet the Dog: Daisuke leads Nami to safety and allows her to escape against Hideki's wishes, although it doesn't take.
- Playing with Fire: Hideki has pyrokinetic powers that mostly manifest as fiery explosions.
- Sex Signals Death: Rei has sex with Kondo in the middle of the investigation, and dies in her very next scene.
- Sex Starts, Story Stops: Kondo and Rei decide to have sex for no real reason — that they're exploring a filthy, abandoned military base for a potential killer seems to have no bearing on their mood.
- Slasher Movie: It starts out as a standart slasher film, but as the plot develops, elements of supernatural horror are thrown in.
- Super Window Jump: The more human brother of the twins meets his end after Nami stabs him, and in panic crashes through a window to the ground below.