Review – Trapped Ashes

One nice thing about horror anthology pieces like this is that if one sequence sucks you can still hold out hope for the next one. Unfortunately, here the best sequences are front-loaded, thus building up expectations that never pay off. The  wraparound was directed by Joe Dante, and it was fun to see his usual visual tricks and a tried-and-true cast member or two even though the story was a stiff re-heat of the wrap from Tales from the Crypt. The lead-off spot is occupied by “The Girl with the Golden Breasts” directed by Ken Russell (who I honestly thought was dead). This tale of a woman who gets vampire breast implants made a good starter because it took the “oooh, boobies” edge off the usual cheap horror movie obsessive treatment of female partial frontal nudity. Next comes “Jibaku” directed by Friday the 13th’s Sean S. Cunningham. It was spooky in an icky Japanese horror porn sort of way. From there, however, the production went sharply downhill. “Stanley’s Girlfriend” is entertaining only for the only-somewhat-oblique hints that the Stanley in question is Stanley Kubrick. And “My Twin, The Worm” is a flat-out dull story of a woman who once shared a womb with a tapeworm. If Stanley and the worm had been replaced with something more in keeping with the first two tales, this would have been a much better picture. Mildly amusing