Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Trapped Ashes

Sean S. Cunningham, Joe Dante, John Gaeta, Monte Hellman, Ken Russell – 2006 – USA

One of the worst of many, many gimmick horror anthologies in recent years, all the more unfortunate because some really quality people were involved, including Monte Hellman and Ken Russell.  On a studio back-lock, a tram driver played by Henry Gibson (one of the film’s only pluses), takes a group of passengers on a tour, strands them in an abandoned haunted house set and makes them tell scary stories to each other.  Each one is dramatized by a different director, such Joe Dante and Sean S. Cunningham.  What’s curious is that in none of them are a director’s signature remotely apparent.  They all look like they could simply have been made by the same hack.  It seems to me that the only thing of interest about such a concept would be to see a mix of styles between the stories; otherwise why not have one director at least try to make a good film instead of several directors making a bunch of bad ones?  Very unfortunate and disappointing all around.

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