Truly Dreadful Film

Sadly Over-hyped

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Well let's call it by it's other name, Trapped. Now, being part of the Palace Explosive Video group, you may well be expecting gory and disturbing violence, which you will run very short of. But of course this doesn't make Trapped bad. It's a well made and put together movie, with a stellar performance by bad man, Henry Silva. Opening with a beautiful nudity shot, with him and a very young philly he disrobes, this is just an establishing scene. The simple plot, has a scenario, used in many other horror in the woods flicks. Four young campers, led by a Nicholas Campbell (an actor who I really like, who really puts in a strong performance here) witnesses a murder at the hands of jealous lover, Silva, where the victim tarred and feathered, prefore, was doing Silva's hot blonde misses. I really liked Campbell's character. He's strong willed and likable. Now with these young co-eds putting a spanner in Silva's works (Campbell, a overzealous and a passionate campaigner against murder, think Michael Biehn in Rampage, also starring Campbell), this ups the suspense, with the hillbilly hunters, and the hunted you, where others too, entering the picture, have to be sacrificed. Soon soon poor Silva is abandoned, on his own, which warrants howling cheer, among us audience. Trapped is very believable, and in it's own way, borrows from Deliverance and Southern Comfort, though of course, isn't a perfect film, and isn't in their league, this of course, not being mainstream too. But this is a better put together film, than you expect it to be. A couple of the film's moments lack, or lose their edge. They don't work. But also, don't judge a movie by it's cover, especially one so nasty. Music score is perfect.

I remember this movie vividly as it was somehow playing in a large multiplex bowling/arcade/fitness/cinema (only in the '80s) complex in Peoria Illinois, where I grew up, circa 1982 or 1983.It stayed in my head because it was so unlike anything I had seen playing at the time. It was the first time I really experienced an "independent" film (this was not a town that played Art Movies) and I literally wandered out of the theater with a "did that just happen to me?" disposition.The best way to sum up "Baker County" (or "Baker Country" as the group of Vietnamese refugees we were then tutoring, kept enthusiastically chanting after the screening) is that it's a precursor to the torture-porn freak movie --- a miscarriage that occurred in the space between visceral roughhouse '70s gems like "Last House on the Left" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the more polished current-day renditions like the "Saw" and "Hostel" movies.There is absolutely no character development, the acting is amateurish (with the possible exception of Henry Silva's deranged evil-incarnate hillbilly) and the story is beyond simplistic: passive college kids witness Silva murdering a man and are then hunted and tortured for his pleasure before they get their standard, expected eye-for-an-eye revenge.Even at 18 I was aware I was being blatantly manipulated and in such an obvious way that it was annoying and condescending. Yes, I expect to be manipulated by a horror film but this does it with such little style and creativity that it's merely insulting.I was shocked to find that today this movie is considered a "cult classic" --- HA! --- and even more shocked to find it was made for $2 MILLION??? Well, it was obviously more expensive to rent film equipment in those days as that cost is nowhere to be seen on film.The only thing I will say to recommend it is that it really is a true "Grindhouse"-type film. Even in the theater I remember the print being incredibly effed-up. It's exploitation taken to the extreme and if that's what you're after, as an artifact anyway, it fills the bill.

Four college students looking for a cave, stray into a Tennessee hollow inhabited by sadistic Henry Silva, and his backwoods clan. After witnessing a murder, the four are relentlessly hunted in the woods. The fact that the local sheriff is kinfolk, makes the situation even more desperate. Silva provides a strong presence as the villain controlling a nice assortment of barefoot babes, and hairy knuckle types. The film features sharp editing, creative photography, and appropriate twangy music. With the outcome always in doubt, interest is maintained throughout. Along with "Hunter's Blood", "Trapped" is a "Deliverance" clone that comes highly recommended. - MERK

In the mountains of Tennessee, a small backwoods village is lorded over by the maniacal Henry Chatwill. He has his own demented form of justice, and after he catches a stranger in bed with his bored sexpot of a wife, some college kids (one of whom is a pacifist) have the misfortune to stumble upon him enforcing it. Now he has to shut them up before they can notify the authorities.Canadian filmmaker William Fruet directed this film, somewhat in the vein of "Deliverance". Usually known as "Trapped", one of the film's alternate titles is "Chatwill's Verdict", a far superior title to say the least. Why they didn't just stick with that one is beyond me, especially when you realize just how many films there are that share the "Trapped" title. While not original, it has a lot going for it, the most notable being Henry Silva's unhinged performance as Chatwill. It's also unpredictable in regards to which characters live and die. Of course, the college students could've avoided the whole mess if they weren't so stupid as to go looking for the body rather than leaving.This is a quality film. Coming from me, that's saying something since I'm not the biggest fan of the backwoods/hillbilly sub-genre.