It's Kill Or Be Killed

Now available on DVD from Code Red is 1982's TRAPPED, an effective Canadian genre piece made in Georgia by William Fruet, the director of SEARCH AND DESTROY, FUNERAL HOME, SPASMS, and DEATH WEEKEND.

Fans of the fantastic Spanish/Italian character actor Henry Silva can't miss his juicy performance. Silva stars as backwoods Tennessee redneck Henry Chatwill, who catches his hotsy-totsy no-undie-wearing young wife in bed with another man. So Henry tars and feathers the man (literally) and then takes him out into the woods and bashes him in the head until he’s dead. Unfortunately, he lets four college students see him do it, and the chase is on. No points for guessing that the kid speechifying in class about pacifism will end up whooping some ass.

Silva is fantastically hammy, and Fruet and writer John Beaird (MY BLOODY VALENTINE) take the trouble to establish the rural setting and give the townspeople some dimension. The college students, unfortunately, don’t get the same attention and have little personality aside from Roger’s (Nicholas Campbell) stance on non-violence. Barbara Gordon, who is still a busy character actress in her native Canada, stands out as Henry’s sister, who decides the townspeople have enabled Henry’s violence for too long.

TRAPPED was also released as BAKER COUNTY, U.S.A. If Nicholas Campbell looks familiar to you, he eventually achieved CBC stardom on the hit crime drama DAVINCI’S INQUEST, which was successful enough to air in syndication in the United States.