Turk Theater Presents - Trapped Ashes

This movie was, for lack of a better term, just bad. 

Now, in college, my friends and I fell into the habit of watching some horrible horror movies. Mostly, on purpose - we found excessive amusement in the novelty of viewing films that had gone horribly wrong, purposely or otherwise. Other times, we instituted a system we called "the Draft." The rules are simple - everyone collects between 1-3 movies they would like to watch and puts them into a stack. Any objections should be voiced here (usually, only for a significant moral reason; ex: someone not being okay with torture, rape, or suicide scenes) as, once a movie is "selected" from the stack, you have to watch it - for better or worse - or else you won't be able to draft for awhile. The stack is passed around clockwise and each person selects one movie to take out and eliminate. It can be for any reason (often including spite or group politics), there are no objections to anyone else's eliminations, and you don't have to explain yourself unless you want to. The stack goes around and around until there's only one movie left where, in good sport and spirit, everyone who's participated so far sits down together for a viewing, regardless of the quality of the result. It's a fantastic system that'll spice up movie nights for almost anyone. Unfortunately, Trapped Ashes fits with the former of the two scenarios above.

To be fair, we (being myself and fellow gentleman Ali D) sat down with the goal to enjoy some glorious B-movie fun at the behest of Fear.net. Although we weren't expecting a "quality" film exactly, there is a significant risk in purveying that selection - the comedic value in "bad horror" isn't always guaranteed. This was a reminder of that fact.

The premise, interestingly enough, seems to mirror the same formula for Chuck Pahalniuk's "Haunted" (and other similar tales). A selection of L.A. residents are given all access, VIP passes on one of the famed "Stars of Hollywood" tours (guided by, of course, the reverend from Wedding Crashers) for one reason or another. During the tour, the group approaches a mysterious, decrepit mansion (who's house it's supposed to be, I forget) where the over-eager crew presses their guide to allow them to enter despite his opposition. Some delightfully bad dialogue, cheesy door slams, and goofy horror gags later the group finds themselves trapped in the basement magically unable to escape. The tour guide, of course, chimes in regarding an urban legend about this mansion - where its occupants gathered in the very room they were in to tell their most horrifying personal stories to one another (Oooooh). Hence, starting off the four-part film and plot-engine for the rest of the movie. It gets really bad and I've taken the liberty of providing a summary of each part with my own titles.

Part 1 - "'Teeth' was already taken, so..."

Boobs that bite and suck blood. Seriously. A young, wanna-be actress opts for plastic surgery to enhance her image, so that she might be able to finally land a leading role. Where she gets the money is never explained, but she undergoes an experimental breast-augmentation using recently deceased tissue. Her new breasts afford her the career, confidence, attention, and sex life she's always wanted. She becomes a porn star (goal... achieved?), and then her breasts start biting people and sucking their blood. It's a problem - she can't control when it happens and her nipples have gone "innie" and grown teeth. After some shoddy investigation work, she stumbles upon a secret lab where she learns that her breasts have been augmented with bio-engineered, blood-sucking organs capable of giving her eternal youth. Oh, and they've been invented by chubby, transexual scientists who've augmented themselves with these "mammpire" (my term. heh.) organs to make themselves forever young. Her big reveal at the end is that she recently killed her poor, loving boyfriend and drank his blood through two martini glasses with straws via her newly bestowed bosom beasts. At a loss for words, yet? You'd think it doesn't get any more misogynistic than that. You'd think that.

Part 2 - "American Man Find Demon Wife for Lesson Learning of Great Importance (US Title)"

A lonely housewife is transformed into a hentai tentacle demon after being seduced by an attractive, yet recently deceased Japanese priest. Yep, they went there. A work-driven businessman takes his wife to Japan during a business trip in the interest in spending some vacation time together (apparently, he promised that they'd have plenty of "alone time," whatever that means). He proceeds to ignore her and she's lured away by said dead priest, where she pours her soul out to him despite the fact that it appears he doesn't understand English. Then, for awhile, they look at a painting of a tentacle creature stripping down and abducting a robed woman. It's awkward, there's moaning involved, and it lead me to believe that the directors are profoundly misinformed on how consensual sexual behavior works.

Later that night, the Lonely Woman, in her dreams, is visited and molested by the rotting image of the dead priest, of which she apparently enjoys (see previous comment on misinformed directors). Her sexual desire aflame (oh god), she wakes up and nakedly follows the priest's voice into a dark cave and doesn't come back. Busy Husband wakes up and searches everywhere, until the Head Priest reveals that Hell, apparently, is in their very backyard and that his wife is going to be trapped there unless he goes immediately to carry her out. Of course, he stumbles through the cave, awkwardly falls, and bam, he's in Hell. Busy Husband beholds the spectacle of his Lonely Wife's transformation into a Voracious Hell-Beast, apparently now capable of sustaining her own erection via one of her tentacles (there's an awkward animation sequence and to save her, he has to shove a Shinto prayer seal down her throat). He carries her out and then they have sex as soon as they make it back to their bedroom, thereby solving all of their problems. The reveal, of course, is that the Wife's burning sexuality is so consumptive that she turns into a demon again and kills said husband with her phallic tentacles because... well... that's what demon-women do, apparently. 

You didn't believe me, did you? And, moving on...

Part 3 - "My Best Friend's 'Girl'"

This story was, actually, pretty decent given the scope of the other parts. And, you've probably heard it before - it's a fairly common folk-tale. They just took out all the good parts. It chronicles the friendship of two aspiring film directors (one of which is Tahmoh Penikett of Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse fame) who bond over chess and their dreams of, well, just finding themselves some tail. The narrator flashes back to the 50's and talks about the Genius Director who aspired to film the first 24-hour movie and the woman that almost ruins their lives. After getting involved with their fair-share of women, the Genius Director falls for a gorgeous, sexually aggressive woman (who seems to just wear a shirt without pants) and they start spending all of their time together. The Narrator notices that Genius Director has become less driven, inattentive, and weak-looking - derived, mostly, from his making a chess mistake. And, then the Genius Director leaves the country to go to film school and make real movies. He succeeds and writes back occasionally, while The Narrator proceeds to be seduced by the Girlfriend and begins to have an explicit, sexual relationship with her. 

After a few sex scenes involving top-less Girlfriend (who has nails so sharp she can draw enough blood to drink from Tahmoh's chest, and does so often), the Narrator notices that he, like his friend before him, feels weak, depressed, and withdrawn - chocking it up to his guilt for betraying his friend for so long. To the Narrator's dismay, Girlfriend reveals that she had informed Genius Director of their relationship a while ago  and that he was "okay with it and not coming back." Sure enough, the Narrator reads a letter from his friend expressing that he'd "hoped this would happen" and that he was pursuing all of his dreams in Europe. And, then the Girlfriend suddenly leaves the Narrator and he never hears from her again. 40 years later, the Narrator learns that his friend died and left him a roll of film in his will and an apology - noting an awareness of the woman's effect on him and his health, and that he'd stayed out of the country to keep away from her. The Narrator watches the film, revealing that the Girlfriend is really a witch who sucks the blood of her victims to stay alive. It's a silent film from Prague, where the woman kills a man on a grave and proceeds to feed on him.

Anyone else seeing a pattern so far? Thought so.

Part 4 - "Le Tapeworm Mon Frere"

A young, french, goth girl develops an emotional attachment to the tapeworm that infested her mother while her mother was pregnant with her (yep, totally serious). This is supposed to explain why the girl is always hungry and why she's constantly stealing food. The mother and father are attractive French people who immigrate to the United States for no apparent reason (orated by actual dialogue, "But, Papa. Why did we come to America? We were doing so well in France"). The directors continue to demonstrate both a gross misunderstanding of middle-school biology and a lack of knowledge in how tapeworms are treated when the mother is told she is both with child and with tapeworm and that there is nothing they can do until the baby is born. The girl's mother proceeds to go into hysterics and begins to starve herself to kill the tapeworm, convinced that she's saving a baby that isn't really in any danger at this point. Shortly after the girl's birth, the father abducts the girl and runs off with the mother's best friend, leaving the mother to a life of psychosis alone. They live in an apartment in a nondescript US city and the girl grows up with an insatiable hunger. When the girl begins to start stealing food, the new step-mother decides that the best course of action is to abuse and starve her. Upset and hungry, the girl SUMMONS THE TAPEWORM FROM THE WALLPAPER to seek revenge. The tapeworm proceeds to crawl up the step-mother's vagina (complete, of course, with more awkward moaning; see previous comment on misinformed directors) and rip her apart from the inside out. Yay.

Conclusion: Someone has some serious mommy issues and I really don't know what else to tell you. With the exception of Tahmoh (his scenes elicited the response "Huh. Look. Someone who can act"), the performances aren't great and, where this movie attempted to become a B-Movie comic masterpiece, the stories were too outrageous to find either funny or scary (did I mention the mommy issues?). It, actually, kinda made me feel like I just watched some really bad porn.

I advise you pass this one by during your forays into the "Free Movies" section on On-Demand. Unless you don't believe me. But, then again, I think that you could live without knowing.