"Spirit Trap" is a thoroughly boring and hardly-worthwhile ghost effort.**SPOILERS**Needing a home for rent, students Jenny, (Billie Piper) Tom, (Luke Mably) Adele, (Emma Catherwood) Nick, (Sam Troughton) and Tina, (Alsou) move into a huge London flat and meet up with each other, settling into their rooms. Going through the belongings left behind after getting acquainted, they find an old Quija Board and decide to give it a shot, which starts to upset some of them. As the night goes on, they all suddenly experience a series of strange events that are initially blamed on each other, but they soon realize that something may be inside the house with them, and after knowing there's a ghost involved in the proceedings, try to solve the mystery involving them and get out alive.The Good News: There was very little that actually had anything worthwhile to it. The ending to the film is actually enjoyable, as there's the full revelation of the ghostly mystery with some nice action and the full explanation of everything comes off rather well and has some rather fun scenes to it. From the scenes of the psycho stalking them around the cavernous, impressive-looking and suitably creepy house, the race to fulfill the requirements for stopping the events from transpiring, these are all quite fun. As the different reactions of the past are inter-weaved with the regular action being rather fun as well. Overall, these scenes come off good and fun. The only other thing to work is that some of the different dream sequences are pretty creepy visually. Rather than simply trying to do a repeat of the action in the house, they're the only real indication something is wrong and it plays them for all it's worth, leading to some decent moments in the middle of the film. These issues are all the film has going for it.The Bad News: This is a severely flawed effort. One of the biggest problems is that the film is just too dull and boring. This one has such a long amount of time where nothing at all happens, lasting nearly an hour before anything remotely close to producing chills is even used, making for a viewing that lasts forever and ever before finally getting to the ghost action. That's not nearly bad enough, but the way it goes about filling up the useless time is where it makes sure to be boring, as the film decides that using up the time by doing absolutely nothing and have them walk around the house yelling at each other for their different methods, from their drug habits to past relationships to the demons plaguing them coming into the house, and this is exactly the opposite of what's needed to make these scenes feel exciting. None of them are all that interesting or exciting or even enjoyable, making the film a real chore to get through during these later segments when they come into the fore, making it seem like the ghost action in here almost an afterthought and barely in the film about it to begin with as it takes a back-seat to the rest of the film's subplots, which is a bad move all around. The other flaw to this is that the film has an incredibly convoluted plot that doesn't make much sense at all. The use of the clock has very little connection other than providing the resting spot for the clue to which it helps solve the mystery and the focus on it is a little hard to understand, the flashbacks to the past are so unnecessary they could've been dropped and nothing would've been missed and it has a huge flaw dealing around the finale, which is entirely too big to ruin here, but there is a rather big one along with the other flaws on display, leaving this one to be entirely disappointing.The Final Verdict: Dull, boring and uneventful sum up this one quite nicely, leaving little room for the few good spots to emerge. Really only see this if you prefer you're horror meshed with a side of drama, though those looking for some generally more adrenaline-soaked fare or aren't fans of those kinds should ignore altogether.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene

Tedious, pointless, amateurish British made mess of a movie that has nothing going for it, and that includes it's so called "star" Billie Piper.The former pop star turned actress here appearing " pre Dr Who"where she did find some success as Dr Who's sidekick, but in " spirit trap" given her first starring role or more tellingly her only cinema "starring role" she certainly does not light up the screen in anyway.She in fact, is easily overshadowed in sexiness by Emma Catherwood anyway and since this film she has gone to mostly TV work,which i do not wish to pass judgement on as i have not seen any of it.I can however pass judgement on "spirit trap" and the verdict is awful.

Nice to see more and more British fantasy films appearing and this one is not so bad. Certainly as good as most American B-Movies of similar ilk and most definitely better than many reviews on this site suggest. Story is perhaps a touch clichéd and generic but, hell, isn't that part and parcel of genre. Haunted House stories do tend to contain haunted houses, and they tend to be haunted by spirits, and these movies appeal to teens and younger adults so they tend to feature teens and younger adults as main characters. It's also a no-brainer to realise that these characters need to make some mistakes in order to activate the BAD THINGS that happen, hence that is what happens. Call it generic or call it derivative, so what? That's the genre. Admitedly, tension isn't built up so well, not much in the way of scares and only a light smattering of atmosphere, but it looks okay and the acting is undoubtedly better than most of the posters on this site are suggesting. Could I possibly ask that reviewers from places other than a film's country of origin don't immediately dismiss UK actors as unknowns just because they are not Keira Knightly, Daniel Craig or Hugh Grant? Billie Piper was certainly less known prior to Doctor Who but it's been a good decade since she was unknown. Sam Troughton and some of the others have also built up a reasonable body of work. Piper is decent in this - some suggest not as good as in Doctor Who - I would point out that most people should shine in Doctor Who because it's so well directed, written, constructed, etc. Piper doesn't shine in this because 'Spirit Trap' just isn't in the same league but it doesn't mean she isn't good. Also liked Troughton. Is this film a waste of time? No! It ain't a classic but it's not so bad. Give it a go, it won't kill you.

Spirit Trap is set in London where five students who study at the London Arts Institute are contacted by the college's accommodation department who have found them a nice big house to share & the rents really cheap. The address is 23 Fortune Green, Nick (Sam Troughton) is the first to arrive, then Jenny (Billie Piper) pops up & they both venture inside the large foreboding house. Although in a state of disrepair & a bit tatty at least it's cheap & spacious, Jenny then meets Tina (Alsou) before the final two occupants the drug dealing Tom (Luke Mably) his girlfriend Adele (Emma Catherwood) show up. In the main hallway there is a large Russian Spirit Clock which Nick starts, from that moment strange, ghostly unexplained things begin to happen & the lines between reality & fantasy begin to blur...This British production was directed by David Smith & despite all the negative comments I have read on the IMDb I actually rather liked it. The script by associate producer Phil O'Shea with the IMDb crediting Rohan Candappa & Paul Finch with 'additional material' takes itself very seriously & to my eyes seemed like a cross between Clive Barker's Candyman (1992) with it's tragic cross racial love story & The Haunting (1963) as it features an old house with a dark secret, it starts off with a relatively slow pace without ever being totally boring. For me there was enough going on to retain my interest, the character's are strong & were well developed with each one having a dark secret which would become an important plot point at the end so in that respect a lot of the development was actually necessary & makes the twist ending work even more. The twist itself I thought was quite good, I didn't see it coming at all & I really liked the ideas that the filmmakers put across although there's a lot to sit through before you get to them. The basic back-story about a black servant who is brutally killed because of a relationship with a white woman which then sets the chain of ghostly events off is a little to close to Candyman for my liking, in fact it's exactly the same. Also I'm not keen on the haunted house genre in general & some of the supernatural occurrences just aren't that scary or interesting, taps being left on for instance isn't something that is going to give me nightmares.Director Smith does a good job, the film certainly looks slick & the muted colour scheme works well with the period interior of the old semi rundown house where the film takes place. There's a kinky asphyxiation sex scene in this which may interest some & there's a fair amount of drug usage which may concern some. Gore wise there's not much happening here, we get some splashed blood, some very brief shots of nails being hammered into a hand & a clock pendulum impales someone. Spirit Trap isn't a film about gore anyway, it's a film about atmosphere & it trying to scare you. While nothing truly scary happens that will give you nightmares there are one or two creepy little moments in here. The film is actually quite stylish too with some nice cinematography.With a supposed budget of about £3,000,000 Spirit Trap had a good sized budget, that's about $6,000,000. It certainly looks slick enough with nice production design & decent special effects although this isn't an effects ridden film. For some reason despite being set in London it was actually filmed in Bucharest in Romania. The IMDb lists the year as 2005 but the end credits prove it was filmed no later than 2004 so that means Billie Piper made this before she found fame in the new series of Doctor Who (2005 - 2006) as Rose Tyler, she does OK in this to be fair. Sam Troughton who is Patrick Troughton's grandson who was the second actor to play Doctor Who during the 60's appears in this so that's another little Doctor Who connection for you. The rest of the actors do alright & put in decent performances.Spirit Trap seems to be getting a bit of a bashing across the internet & here on the IMDb, to be fair I can see why as it's a bit slow & if you don't follow it properly the ending may not be as effective as it should be & the lack of special effects, deaths & gore probably doesn't help either. Having said that I though it was a good solid character driven haunted house ghost story that had some nice twists & turns but ultimately maybe there's not quite enough going on to save it.