Product Details

• Actors: Jayce Bartok, Henry Gibson, Lara Harris, Scott Lowell, Dick Miller
• Directors: Joe Dante, John Gaeta, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman, Sean S. Cunningham
• Writers: Dennis Bartok
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: July 15, 2008
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0018LX9SA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,915 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Trapped Ashes" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

SEVEN STRANGERS ARE TRAPPED INSIDE AN INFAMOUS 'HOUSE OFHORROR' DURING A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STUDIO TOUR & ARE FORCED TOTELL THEIR MOST TERRIFYING PERSONAL STORIES TO GET OUT ALIVE. THESE ARE FIVE STORIES OF THE SURREL, EROTIC & TERRIFYING DIRECTED BY FIVE OF HOLLYWOOD'S MOST UNIQUE FILMMAKERS.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good In Bits, July 27, 2008

By 

Paul Ess. (Holywell, N.Wales,UK.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trapped Ashes (DVD)

Contains Spoilers;

'Trapped Ashes' is a 'horror' anthology with each episode cut by a different director. There's an awful lot of sex on show, but not much original, inventive horror, and the main reason for this is a limp and gawky script by the otherwise fabulously named Dennis Bartok.

You know Ken Russell's segment isn't going to be out and out gore, but a glance at his back-catalogue reveals the guy's no stranger to extreme imagery, and as you'd expect, his piece is the most successful.
'The Girl With The Gold Breasts' makes the most of a weak conceit, and it's to Russell's great credit that he turns such an uneventful story into something so watch-able;
A wannabe Hollywood actress, undergoing a routine cosmetic procedure, receives vampire breasts. When she complains, we get to see Russell and two other old guys, dressed in very disturbing drag, eventually revealing they have splendid vampire breasts as well!
That's it. It's funny, quite bizarre, and you're left scratching your head a bit afterwards.
'TGWTGB' shows Russell's imagination is as warped and impish as ever, and an interview on the 'special features' reveals him to be cheerfully demented.

The other three films are no-where near as solid. Sean S. Cunningham's is a kind of live-action/Manga hybrid set around a Buddhist temple with plenty of sex as you'd expect, but not much chills.
Monte Hellman's piece seems to be a thesis on why Kubrick left for Europe in the 60's; his girlfriend was a witch apparently.
The final story by John Gaeta, an fx man, about a goth's relationship with the tape-worm she was forced to share her mother's belly with, has at least the embryo (apologgys droogies) of a good idea, but the climax is so obvious it falls straight off the screen.

Joe Dante does the linking story, and apart from a customary cameo by Dick Miller, it goes absolutely nowhere.
The 'twist' is the kind of post-modern nonsense that gets contributed to druggie art-school rag-mags. I'm all for wracking my brain if there's payola at the crunch, but it just doesn't happen. It's no help that the acting is so sluggish and one-dimensional either, you don't care if anyone dies or not.

Unfortunately, apart from Russell, it's all a bit of a slider. Needs a much more subversive and troubled writer to get the best out of these guys.
3 stars for Lionsgate giving Ken Russell work and putting the British Film Industry to shame, but it's a generous 3.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very, very dull, March 13, 2011

By 

Nathan Christian (Pitcairn, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trapped Ashes (DVD)

Like an ash, really. This movie, for me, was very unbearable to watch. The stories were contrived and didn't make much sense. The only thing about the whole package that i liked was the sound track music, which reminded me of a far more interesting anthology film After Midnight Watch it instead if you can

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NOT SCARY AT ALL, July 22, 2008

By 

S. D. (Omaha, Nebraska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trapped Ashes (DVD)

I took a chance and rented this one. I figured that with 4 individual short films in this thing, at least 1 or 2 of them would be scary. Was I wrong! 4 short films and nothing scary about any of them. I should have known. After all, when was the last time you saw anything good with John Saxon or Henry Gibson in it? Well, don't expect much from this one either. At least not as far as good scary horror moments go.

However, if you're looking for lots of nudity, this is definitely worth a look. I think there were topless women in just about every one of the short stories. The puzzler though is: when did directors start thinking that topless women make for a good scary movie? Entertaining to watch, maybe. But scary? I don't think so.

Save your time. Save your money. Check out something else instead of this lemon. I'm sorry I wasted MY time, that's for sure!