Horror Novel Review: Trapped by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

All good things must come to an end and so must all bad things. The original Fear Street series concluded with Trapped, an enjoyably macabre and kind of grotesque take on The Breakfast Club.

You know how these things go. You’ve got five students and they’re all stuck in detention. Elaine is the smart girl who failed to turn in her homework. (They give you detention for that?) The principal hopes that the other detainees won’t be a bad influence on her. (Then don’t give her detention in the first place, you jerk!) Darlene is the girl who doesn’t take any crap from anyone. Jerry is the Brain, who was sent to detention because he refused to dissect a frog. (I remember an entire episode of Saved By The Bell that dealt with the same issue.) Max is a spray paint artist who uses the school as his canvas. And Bo? Well, Bo’s a good-looking rebel who likes to burn stuff.

Anyway, detention is kind of boring and, since no one wants to have a therapy session like they did n the Degrassi episode that was based on The Breakfast Club, the students decide to explore the tunnels that are underneath Shadyside High. It’s rumored that some kids died down there in the 60s! Stupid hippies! Though some are initially hesitant, all five of the students end up in the tunnels. And that’s where they get trapped!

And, listen, I can understand how this happens. I get lost in mazes too. I once spent hours lost in a hedge maze and it was not fun. (I later got revenge by building a similar hedge maze in the Sims and then setting it on fire. The resulting inferno killed all of my Sims but, fortunately, their ghosts stuck around to haunt the house.) But it’s not just the maze aspect that makes the tunnels difficult to escape. There’s also this red mist that, when it envelopes you, snaps your bones and folds you into a tiny cube and basically kills you in the worst, most painful way possible.

AGCK!

Seriously, that mist is so viscous and the deaths are so drawn out and the book ends on such a downbeat note, I had to remind myself that I was reading a book by R.L. Stine and not Christopher Pike. There’s not much humor to be found in Trapped. Unlike other Fear Street novels, it doesn’t end on a note of hope. Instead, there’s just death, violence, and pain. It makes sense, I guess. This was the final Fear Street book so Stine wasn’t obligated to try to get people to come back for the next one. He could be as morbid as he wanted to be and the end result is actually pretty good. That red mist is actually pretty scary!

I enjoyed Trapped. I’m glad I never explored any of the underground tunnels under my school. Who knows what might have been down there! Hmmm …. now, I’m tempted to find out….

Trapped (1973, directed by Frank De Felitta)

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Chuck Brenner (James Brolin) is out shopping when he’s mugged and left unconscious in a men’s room stall. By the time Chuck wakes up, the store is closed for the weekend and the place is deserted except for him and six doberman guard dogs. The dogs are trained to hunt down and attack anyone who shouldn’t be in the store and, as far as they’re concerned, that includes Chuck. Chuck now has to survive the night and try to figure out a way to get out of the store. Not helping is that Chuck still hasn’t recovered from taking a blow to the head and he’s been bitten by one of the dogs, leaving a blood trail for them to follow.

This made-for-TV movie is a simple but effective thriller about an ordinary man trapped in an extremely dangerous situation. Frank De Felitta (who would later direct one of my favorite made-for-tv horror film, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow) does a good job of creating suspense as Chuck tries to make it from one area of the department store to the next without getting attacked. (One of the best scenes involves Chuck, dizzy because he has a concussion, jumping from one cabinet to another while the dogs wait below him.) Even dog lovers will become nervous as the dobermans prowl the aisles, looking for their prey. James Brolin gives a good everyman performance and he’s ably supported by Susan Clark as his ex-wife and Earl Holliman as Clark’s new husband. The film is so well-executed that it was only after it ended that I started to wonder why any store would leave six dog unsupervised in their store overnight. Just the effort that would have to be made to clean up after them would cancel out whatever money was being saved by not using a human security guard.

Trapped has been released under several titles, the best known of which is The Dobermn Patrol. My personal favorite, though, is Danger Doberman!

Trapped (1989, directed by Fred Walton)

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

A man (Ben Loggins) leaves his home one day, thinks about how his life has recently gone wrong, and then goes to an unfinished office building where he kills not only the people who he considers responsible but also anyone else who gets in his way. Trapped in the building with him and trying to survive through the night until the doors automatically unlock in the morning are the building’s manager, Mary Ann Marshall (Kathleen Quinlan), and a corporate spy who is only willing to say that May Ann should call him John Doe (Bruce Abbott).

Trapped was produced for and originally aired on the USA network and it went on to become a USA mainstay for most of the 90s. It’s a surprisingly violent and gory for a made-for-TV film from 1989 and the nearly-empty office building is an appropriately creepy setting. Director Fred Walton does a good job of creating and maintaining a sense of suspense and he’s helped by three excellent lead performances from Kathleen Quinlan, Bruce Abbott, and especially Ben Loggins. Loggins is credited as simply being “The Killer” and the film keeps his motives murky. If you pay attention, you can discover what has driven him over the edge but the film is smart enough to concentrate on the cat-and-mouse game that he plays with Quinlan and Abbott. One thing that sets Trapped‘s Killer apart from other psycho move stalkers is that Trapped‘s Killer is ambidextrous, carrying a dagger in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, making him even more intimidating than the typical movie psycho. Kathleen Quinlan, an underrated actress who is probably best-known for playing Tom Hanks’s wife in Apollo 13, is also a feisty and likable heroine.

Don’t let its origin as a made-for-TV film scare you off. Trapped is a good and suspenseful thriller.

The Fabulous Forties #6: Trapped (dir by Richard Fleischer)

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After being disappointed with Guest In The House, I decided to go ahead and watch the sixth film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set and I’m glad that I did. 1949’s Trapped turned out to be an entertaining little discovery.

Much like Port of New York, Trapped opens with documentary footage of the government at work and an official sounding narrator explaining to us that we are about to see a film about the hardworking agents of the Treasury Department. In fact, the narrator goes on for so long about the Treasury Department that he starts to sound downright worshipful. There’s nothing that the Treasury Department cannot do! Who protects the President? The Treasury Department! Who tracks down counterfeiters? The Treasury Department! Who protects the coast? The Coast Guard but guess what? The Coast Guard is actually a part of The Treasury Department! The tone of the narration is so worshipful that it could almost pass for a Scientology recruiting film. Just as only the Sea Org can protect us from Evil Lord Xenu, only the Treasury Department can stop phony money pushers!

Eventually, the narration ends and the actual movie begins. Fortunately, the rest of Trapped more than makes up for that awkward introduction. The film opens with a bunch of Treasury agents looking over a phony twenty-dollar bill. The bill is almost perfect and the agents believe that it was printed using plates designed by one of the world’s greatest counterfeiters, Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges). The only problem is that Stewart is in prison. Obviously, someone else has gotten their hands on Stewart’s plates.

Stewart is upset that someone is getting rich off of his work. So, he strikes a deal with the Treasury Department. In return for being released, he will help them track down his plates. The Treasury Department agrees and arranges for Stewart to “escape” during a phony prison break.

However, Stewart has plans of his own. As soon as he’s out of jail, he knocks out his handler and escapes for real. Tris is not only planning on tracking down his plates but he’s also going to go back into business printing and passing phony money. He also reunites with his girlfriend, nightclub hostess Meg Dixon (Barbara Payton).

When he meets Meg, he discovers that she has a new admirer. Johnny Hackett (John Hoyt) likes to hang out whenever Meg’s working. Even though Johnny appears to have a thing for Meg, he and Tris still become friends. Tris is even willing to bring Johnny in on the operation but, what Tris doesn’t realize, is that Johnny Hackett is actually Treasury agent John Downey (John Hoyt)…

Needless to say, violence, betrayal, and death follows.

Shot on location in some of the seediest parts of 1940s Los Angeles, Trapped is a fast-paced and exciting film noir. (This is one of those films, like The Black Book, where shadows are literally everywhere.) Lloyd Bridges (who, as a young man, could have passed for Kirk Douglas’s brother) gives a great performance as the charming but ultimately cold-hearted Tris Stewart while John Hoyt does a fairly good job as the conflicted Downey. Barbara Payton, one of the more tragic figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age, does such a good job as Meg that it’s even more tragic to consider that, just a few years after making Trapped, her career would be destroyed by alcoholism and personal scandal and she would eventually end up as a homeless prostitute on Sunset Boulevard.

Trapped was a good discovery and you can watch it below!