Review: Derivative horror film ‘The Snare’ relies on cheap shocks

Horror films that traffic in creeping dread are generally more sophisticated than ones that just jolt audiences with jump-scares, but when done clumsily, they’re no less clichéd. Writer-director C.A. Cooper’s “The Snare” is admirably artful and oblique in putting its own twist on the haunted-house story, but it’s derivative of much better psychological suspense films and is obnoxiously unpleasant to boot.

Eaoifa Forward stars as Alice, a timid young woman who joins her peppy best friend, Lizzy (Rachel Warren), and Lizzy’s crude boyfriend, Carl (Dan Paton), on a vacation at a high-rise resort apartment that turns out to be abandoned. Soon after they arrive, they discover that they’re trapped, locked into a flat with no water and a store of rotting food.

The source of the dilemma appears to be supernatural, although given the way Alice sometimes zones out into disturbing reveries — where she either hallucinates or remembers scenes of sexual abuse — it’s also possible that she’s ultimately responsible for this putrefying purgatory.

Cooper eschews conclusiveness, choosing instead to ape the likes of “The Shining,” “Suspiria” and various Roman Polanski and Ben Wheatley projects by combining kitchen-sink mundanity with operatic surrealism. But where those films and filmmakers offer depth and purpose, “The Snare” presents images of rape and rot that in their way are as exploitative as any slasher.

Give Cooper credit for daring to unsettle viewers, not just scare them. But cheap shocks are cheap shocks, no matter how well-intentioned.

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‘The Snare’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

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