The Daily Dig: Trapped Alive (1988)

This Christmas horror doesn’t actually bother with the fat man in red; we get a cave-dwelling killer mutant instead.

Escaped convicts hide out in a mine with kidnapped women, cops, and prison guards who are hunted by an underground killer. Let’s dig into 1988’s TRAPPED ALIVE, directed by Leszek Burzynski!

As I See It

A film by the same writer of Blood Harvest, an earlier Dig starring ukulele-wielding talent, the late Tiny Tim, we get a little bit more to chew on with this film than the former. But we’re still firmly in the camp subgenre.

Highlighted by a great slasher score, it’s very clear that the cast doesn’t have much training on their resume. That said, the two main girls are really good for having no other credit to their names.

There are some rad practical gore effects, and the yeti-looking monster is… different.

You have to consider this a Christmas horror, even if most of the film is spent away from the garland, turtle doves, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

They asked a lot of their inexperienced cast, and the action scenes were pulled off pretty well.

I love the meat hook contraption, but that ending was absolute horseshit. The dialogue for the ending was either written by a child or in a partial state of sleep because it makes no sense. Pure trash.

Famous Faces

Elizabeth Kent (Rachel) starred alongside Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm, two genre legends, in an earlier Dig, Mindwarp.

Other than that, most of the starring cast had little to no other acting gigs.

Of Gratuitous Nature

The sex scene seems about as forced as it gets. Shoehorning that into the film was for nothing more than to add a T&A factor, which they already had with the strip scene.

Heartthrob

Laura Kallison (Monica) is a totally eighties babe in her only acting role. She’s got a bit of a brunette Pam Anderson thing going on.

Ripe for a Remake

There is only so much retro the world can handle, and a rehash of this would be solely for nostalgia purposes. Unless you went really gritty and realistic, keeping the humanoid monster, I don’t see much of a reason to dive back in.

Spawns

No progeny to report.

Where to Watch

Arrow Video put out a Blu-Ray with a ton of new footage and making-of featurettes. They also had the wherewithal to hire Justin Osbourn to bring his brilliance to some new cover artwork. The original art was rather artless.