Steel Trap (2009) : Help! I'm trapped in bad movie hell!!

I kind of like crappy movies. Sometimes.
But not this time.

So I pretty much hated everyone in this cast (save one) within approximately ten minutes.
A group of adults are at a New Year's Eve party on the top floor of an abandoned skyscraper. A fairly bad band is singing a fairly bad alt-rocked up version of Auld Lang Syne and everyone is mingling. We have Wade - the rock band's lead singer and an obvious lothario, Pam -a slut (great combo already), Nicole -an unattractive bitch who thinks she is attractive, Robert -her boyfriend who was planning on proposing until he saw her kissing another creep (the lothario) when the clock struck twelve, Kathy -a complete and utter Rachael Ray rip-off, and Pam -a business woman who so wants to represent our kitchen queen that all she gets done doing is kissing her ass.

So they all start getting ridiculous cryptic rhyming messages on their cell phones telling them to meet on another floor for a "special" party. Somehow I doubt anyone in their right mind would actually do this, but for the sake of the movie, I continued.
This random group of nobodies all ends up at party central - which is basically looks like a kid's birthday party, complete with balloons, paper tablecloths, cups and plates, confetti, and badly handwritten place cards. (Say what.....???)

They find "clues" by the way of nursery rhymes (which is really annoying by the way) and as they stupidly split up and wander around the hallways search for answers, we - the audience - get to see the killer strolling around all giallo-like in his black gloves setting up his various traps - which brings to mind a little movie I call "Saw". Especially when the gang tries to discover how they are all connected. If we'd combine Saw and Laid to Rest (because our killer wears a mask that looks kinda like molten aluminum foil), then divide it by that book of nursery rhymes your mom read to you when you were three, I think the result would be this film.

The acting here is so horrifically bad that I cannot begin to justify it. I was especially unimpressed with the bitchy chick - she looked a bit like Molly Shannon but nowhere near as funny, not even unintentionally. I can't even bring myself to post her pic, she was so trite. And when the cooking show honey had just about the most unrealistic, unbelievable seizure I've ever seen - and she practically jumped to her feet directly afterward, launching into a tirade about what they should do next. (Well, at least she didn't try driving a car, right?)

My favorite line is "I don't want to die in the dark." Seriously? Is it better to get killed in the light? I'm thinking no. I'd rather not see it coming, but maybe that's just me. How about not dying at all, that'd be altogether cool, I'm thinking.

So while our laughable group is whittled down to four, we realize the killer is watching everything on video, getting off on the murders. Yep, that's never been done before. Could this really be any more like Saw? The gloved weirdo takes pleasure in killing them according to his little poems, and to be honest I saw the 'twist' ending coming a mile away.

I must also mention - if for no other reason than simply principle - that the DVD cover itself is utterly misleading. The girl on the cover did not look familiar. At all. Not only do I have no idea who she is, I have no idea where she is. This person, to my knowledge, is not even in the film, nor is the location. Also good to note is the nonsensical tag line about surviving each floor...to my knowledge it takes place mostly on a few floors, and they really have nothing to do with "the game". Cripes!

All joking aside, there is seriously little to defend in this shit-storm of malarkey. It's unoriginal, painstakingly boring, poorly acted, and just downright a waste of time. Believe me when I say you just can't wait till it's over! I read somewhere (before seeing this, natch) that the movie was loosely based on Agatha Christie's novel, Ten Little Indians (a.k.a. And Then There Were None) but after finishing this movie, I have only one word to say to that...*cough cough*.... Bullshit!

I'm saddened at my contemptible Netflix movie-choosing skills. I usually have better judgment than this and this, combined with the nearly-as-awful Skeleton Crew (review forthcoming), would have made for a pretty bad weekend of horror, if I hadn't stuck a Vincent Price movie in the middle of them.