Director: Lee Moon-young
Year: 2021
Country: South Korea
Alternate Titles: The Trap
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Taking a trip into the woods, a group of friends hoping to take a camping experience in the area finds the experience to be a ruse to get them into contact with an organ-harvesting ring operating in the area using one of them as a devious client and must try to stop the ruthless leader to escape alive.
Review:
Overall, this one has a lot going for it. Among the better aspects here is the rather intriguing story that sets everything in motion. Setting up the group camping trip into the woods, the interactions that take place signaling burgeoning romances, and the threat of the locals filled with traps to keep the animals at bay, but also acting as a looming threat about wandering too far from the camp, is all fine enough. The series of continuing storylines from this simple setup, with the discovery of the homeless man living in the woods, the realization that they've become involved in an organ-harvesting ring, and how these connections come together, makes for a great time as the twisting narrative comes about finely as this moves along.
This setup provides the chance for the film to initiate the more gruesome aspects of its story quite nicely. Having gotten some unnerving aspects already with the encounter with the homeless man and realizing that they've become stranded in the woods, the sequence where the henchmen emerge with their true purpose, abducting and kidnapping the group, is quite chilling. As it slowly becomes clear what's going on and how the twist about the deviant member among them has put the whole plan in motion, this brings about some rather gruesome and brutal outcomes, which generate several impressive deaths here, ranging from the graphic surgery scenes removing organs or the hard-hitting means showing the desperation to get away alive. These are quite brutal and bloody enough to be worth getting a lot to enjoy here.
There are some issues present here that do bring it down. The main drawback of the film is the incredibly scattered final half, where the storyline presents way too much going on for its own good. There are way too many elements at play here, from the backstory of the homeless man, the connection between the deviant group member and the organ-harvesting ring, and who they're all working for. This makes for a whirlwind time trying to make sense of everything with the need for streamlining these factors being somewhat important as having everything get spelled out in this point in the running time creates a lot of information to take in at a time where it should be wrapping up the storylines instead brings about quite a lot to take in and distracts from the action taking place around the laboratory and surrounding woods.
This factor also ties into the other issue here, where the ending resolution to everything goes on way too long to the point it's not as interesting as it should've been. With the battle to overcome the leader of the organ-harvesting ring and how that plays out, there's a cathartic ending point established, defeating everyone involved, but instead of ending there, this continues on several minutes longer, trying to deal with an extra point that doesn't need to happen. Since there are a few too many storylines present that don't need to be included, this causes the ending to run on a bit longer than necessary, trying to deal with these factors and drag out an ending when it didn't need it. As a whole, these are the few drawbacks featured.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather fun if slightly flawed genre effort, this one comes off rather nicely, even though there are some factors to bring it down in the end. Fans of this particular kind of Asian horror feature or just general fans of the thriller featured here will have a lot to like, while most others out there that don't appreciate the style here should heed caution.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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