Cheap Death Trap (Video) (Nature Archive Series) Price

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Customer Reviews of Death Trap

At 57 minutes I wasn't expecting a huge overview of carnivorous plants but here the focus is entirely on the trapping of prey. It appears the producers, Oxford Scientific Films, and the writers were looking to disgust and amaze the uninitiated instead of actually discussing the plants themselves; to have done so would have made a vastly more intriguing video and perhaps enticed viewers to appreciate the unique role these plants (far too many endangered) play in their ecosystems.

Focusing extensively on dionea, sarracenia (purpurea-only), utricularia, and, to some degree, roridula and aldrovanda, this video only gives a few seconds to the genus nepenthes, genlisea, cephalotus (which they only show in relation to, of all things, a bear trap!), heliamphora, and completely neglects pingulicula, byblis, genlisea, cephalotus, and the magnificent triphyophyllum.

If these scientific names mean nothing to you then you understand my problem with this video as it certainly won't teach them to you either.

Yes there is the usual spectacular photography which is the hallmark of the Nature series and the electon microscope photographs of the inner walls of sarracenia are something you won't see anywhere else. Magnificent, highly-magnified scenes of utricularia and aldrovanda at work are equally spectacular and without question qualify this video for the CP enthusiast's library--but little else will.

When I think of what this video COULD have been I am greatly saddened. There are plants far more interesting and spectacular (save maybe dionea) then the few species illustrated here If the director hadn't spent ridiculous amounts of time lingering on the various traps at work over and over ad nauseum, including (inexplicably) the hatching of a mosquito! No mention is made of the scientific history of the plants or Charles Darwin or their evolution. It's all gore and guts, yeah baby! Let's not even mention the odd "spacey" syntho-music (ca. 1986) which sounds like a reject from a sci-fi themed porno film.

To illustrate the problem the overview of roridula tells us roridula is not carnivorous but that assassin bugs do populate the plant without hazard. The video neglects to mention that the assassin bugs excerete waste which the plant then absorbs thus creating a true symbiotic relationship. A much more obvious and fascinating example of this is the relationship between golden ants and a tropical pitcher plant species but since the video barely shows a few shots of the tropical pitcher plants, the viewer will never know.

Excellent photography, detailed explanations of trapping mechanisms in the few genus which it covers, and very good narration redeem "Death Trap" to some extent but for a real eye-opener get Peter D'Amato's "The Savage Garden" (also available from amazon.com). Even if you have no intention of growing carnviorous plants this book will pull you in and delight you with impossibly fantastic stories of the REAL lives of these vegetable predators.

'Dark Harbor' is a Re-make of 'Death Trap': excellent
I was shocked by this movie: the acting was excellent with Christopher Reeves performing schemingly as a homosexual writer in love with another writer (Michael Caine). The lead movie at the Maine Film Festival was 'Dark Harbor' with Alan Rickman, a re-make of this movie without alluding to the fact. See this one for some great suspense by wonderful actors. You'll grieve as I do, for the loss (so far) to the acting world of Chris Reeves.