Tuesday, February 9, 2016

TRAPPED (1973)

Do you like the sound of dogs snarling, growling and barking?  Then this is the movie for you! Originally broadcast on November 14th, 1973 as part of ABC's "Movie of the Week" series, TRAPPED tells the story of a young James Brolin who's shopping at a large department store in New York City.  While innocently shopping, he's jumped in the bathroom by some muggers who beat him up and leave him for dead.  The store closes and for whatever insane reason the store is guarded by five bloodthirsty attack dogs!  They're so violent that the handlers have to wear full body protection and even install dividers to keep the dogs from attacking each other!!! James wakes up and is instantly bitten in the leg. So now with blood spurting all over the place, to the point that he's getting delirious, he runs around the store getting attacked at every turn by these crazy dogs.

Any normal person (remember this is before cell phones) would just run back into the shitter and pull the fire alarm or break a fire sprinkler nozzle, but no, not Brolin. Instead, he runs all over the joint crashing into stuff. It's kinda humorous, especially how pissed off the dogs are. They growl at everything! What's that? A mop? Grrrrr. What's that?! Stairs? Grrrrr. What's that?! A door? Grrrrr. What's that?! Another dog going Grrrrr? Grrrrr.

The dog portions are fun, but unfortunately half of the film is also taken up with Brolin's ex-wife looking for him.  Those scenes are a complete snoozefest.  If there were more attack dog scenes and less ex-wife walking around scenes, I would recommend it, but as it is it's just a mildly entertaining historical novelty.

Fun Fact: writer/director Frank De Felitta went on to direct the legendary TV movie DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW.