Trapped Ashes - Horror Movie by Cult Directors

Joe Dante, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman and Sean S. Cunningham

Aug 9, 2009

An eclectic bunch of cult film directors combine their talents for Trapped Ashes, a portmanteau Horror movie based around a notorious house of horrors.

Inspired by horror anthologies such as The House that Dripped Blood (Peter Duffell 1972) and Asylum (1972), screenwriter Dennis Bartok penned Trapped Ashes and persuaded several filmmakers he had befriended over the years through his work as a programmer at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles to each direct a different segment. Joe Dante (Gremlins 1984), Ken Russell (The Devils 1971), Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th 1980) and Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop 1971) all make their own idiosyncratic contributions to Trapped Ashes.

‘Wraparound’ Directed by Joe Dante

A group of people are being taken on a tour of an old Hollywood studio by an ageing tour guide (Henry Gibson, from Dante’s The Burbs). One of the party notices the house from a fictional movie called Hysteria whose director mysteriously disappeared shortly after its completion. Although Hysteria House is not part of the official tour the guide agrees to show them around. Once inside though, they find themselves trapped. The plot of Hysteria involved a group of strangers trapped inside the expressionistic house telling macabre stories about their own lives. The guide suggests they do the same.

‘The Girl with the Golden Breasts’ Directed by Ken Russell

Russell’s segment is a typically cheeky affair with Phoebe (Rachel Veltri), a struggling young actress in Hollywood trying to further her career by getting her breasts enhanced. Unfortunately the surgeon she chooses to perform this operation uses parts from dead bodies and likes to smoke cigars during the procedure. She awakens with vampiric breasts that feed on human flesh, although these prove to be no obstacle to getting ahead in Hollywood. Ken Russell also cameos as a transsexual Doctor with his own set of murderous mammaries.

‘Jikabu’ Directed by Sean Cunningham

Henry (Andy Lowell) and his wife Julia head for an architect’s conference in Japan. Julia (Lara Harris) feels they are drifting apart. At a drinks party Julia has a strange encounter with a young man called Seishin (Yoshinori Hiruma), who explains to her the significance of the painting they are looking at. It is about Jikabu, the Japanese form of hell. Seishin is later found hanged and Julia disappears. Sean Cunningham’s direction here is more subtle than viewers may be used to from the Friday the 13th movies.

‘Stanley’s Girlfriend’ Directed by Monte Hellman

Hellman has directed very little of note since Two-Lane Blacktop but his segment here is the most interesting part of the film. John Saxon plays Leo, an ageing screenwriter, looking back on his friendship with Stanley Kubrick, some thirty years after it all fell apart. Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett plays the younger Leo bonding with Stanley (Tygh Runyan) over a love of movies and chess until a woman comes between them.

‘My Twin the Worm’ by John Gaeta

Special effects maestro John Gaeta (The Matrix) makes his directorial debut with this unsettling tale of a woman infected with a parasitic worm during childbirth. The mother goes mad and dies when her daughter is young, forcing her to move in with her father and his new wife. Except the child believes her sibling, the worm, is still around and is watching over her.

Although all of the segments are watchable, none of them are particularly frightening. The lack of budget involved in the project is always apparent. Trapped Ashes may be too obscure for audiences for whom a Dick Miller cameo means nothing. This is a film for completists, for film fans who will happily watch anything involving cult heroes like Joe Dante, Ken Russell, or the actors John Saxon (Enter the Dragon 1973) and Ryo Ishibashi (Audition 1999).

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