South Korea’s Lee Moon-young turns his hand to Horror for his feature directorial debut The Human Trap. Originally released in 2021, but debuting on Amazon Prime and other VOD/Streaming Platforms January 12, 2024 through Cinephobia Releasing, the film follows two young couples who decide to take an impromptu trip to the woods for some camping. Chae-rim (Kang Seung-hyun: Believer 2018, Champion 2018), Ji-ae (Kang Byeol: Punch 2011, Seoul Searching 2015), Jung-ho (Park Yeon-woo: When the Camellia Blooms 2019) and Ki-young (Kim Dong-ho) have little experience in the wilderness but with most of the group hoping to use the opportunity to hook up, the hapless four set off.
Things start to go wrong almost straight away when their car breaks down. Luckily (or not as it later transpires), they are picked up by a friendly doctor (Song Young-gyu: Extreme Job 2019, Baseball Girl 2019) who agrees to take them to their destination. After struggling to set up, the group are finally getting settled when a strange man enters the camp and threatens them. Soon they realize that they have had their phones stolen, all communication is cut off and they are stranded in a camp surrounded by bear traps. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, an even more terrifying truth starts to emerge about why they are there and who may have lured them to their untimely demise.
Overall, The Human Trap gets off to a really good start. It begins as almost a raunchy Comedy with one character promising another one a weekend of ‘extracurricular activities’ if they go camping and a series of mishaps threatening that promise. The four young characters are flawed but likeable and the setting of the woods is visually interesting. As the Horror starts to creep in, the film becomes more intriguing and unnerving as the characters assess their strange situation.
However, once The Human Trap plays its hand, it does lose some of its effectiveness. The film works best when it is more mysterious and neither the audience nor the characters know exactly what is going on. As more and more is revealed and explained, it does feel too spoon fed. That being said, there is definitely one reveal that comes as a shock, and it is in elements like that that keep The Human Trap from becoming too disappointing.
For the most part, the tonal changes in The Human Trap work with the only notable stand out being the end when some real life facts about missing people come up on screen. Whilst these are important and worthy facts that should be brought to peoples’ attention, considering all that transpires before these facts and the inclusion of them feels a bit tone deaf. All in all, this is a solid debut that will appeal to fans of the genre even if it doesn’t completely blow them away. That is why Cryptic Rock gives The Human Trap 3 out of 5 stars.
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