If your brother was killed and you
chose a path of bloody revenge that sent you into Heisenberg’s twisted maze
of booby traps, what would you do?
I’m an equal opportunity survivalist.
Smart, dumb, or insidiously stupid, everyone deserves to hear how their idiotic choices and
hairbrained schemes are gonna get them killed.
This group of thieves have a smattering of
competency between them, but most are merely fodder for the slaughter funnel they’re walking
into. No strategy, no planning, and terrible timing won’t stop them from trying to rob the most
brutal gang in the city. Their only hope is the nat 20 plot armor they walked in wearing.
I’m going to break down the mistakes made, what you should do, and how to beat
the DEATH TRAPS in TRAP HOUSE.
In a den of Blue Sky users, a teenager
named Ryan partakes…and becomes paranoid. He tries to warn his fellow users that they
need to leave, that something is coming, but they’re too zonked to listen.
SWAT bashes the door in and Ryan bolts deeper into the den. One officer gives
chase, cornering him…right before he opens a door and takes a nasty surprise to the face.
The officer screams into his radio for backup, but a signal jammer mutes his cries for help. He
plunges deeper into the facility, sees THE COOK and fires wildly. Then, he hears it. He’s pressed
a trap button with his foot without realizing. A clear gas begins to pump into the room. We’ll
learn in a bit that this is sarin nerve gas, which attacks the entire body. It can blind
you, cause seizures and something called floppy paralysis, AND drown you in your own fluids.
Alas, it doesn’t occur to him to pull out the gas mask SWAT members carry with them, but it
wouldn’t have mattered. One to ten milliliters of sarin on the skin can be fatal in minutes.
And because aerosol sarin is denser than air, it can pool along the floor, so when you fall,
it’ll be there to finish the job. The most immediate thing he can do is run, out of this room
and hopefully back toward the rest of his unit, but even if he makes it, he risks contact
poisoning his men if he stops breathing and they try to give him mouth to mouth.
The next day, Detective Grant Pierce arrives at the crime scene. We get our first glimpse of
total incompetency when the Chief tells him that SWAT didn’t call this crime in. Neighbors saw the
Cook leaving with a woman after shots were fired.
The chief isn’t too choked up about the
loss of life. He tells Grant to get a load of what happened to one of the victims
like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
Grant goes cold as he notices
the tattoo on the body’s arm.
It’s his brother - Ryan.
In the aftermath, the chief debriefs homicide. They know the trap houses are operated by a gang,
led by the Cook and an unknown business partner who rule their herd of dealers with an iron fist.
Even though they change locations every few days to evade the DEA, they go overboard with booby
traps to punish anyone who might come knocking.
Grant tells the chief he has a theory
on the cook – he must be a military vet, given the sarin gas. He even suggests
he may have served in the gulf war, as sarin gas was the cause of Gulf War Illness.
The Chief says he’ll pass the info along, telling Grant he can’t be part of
the investigation. Grant’s furious, but the Chief won’t budge. Neither will Grant.
He tracks down a teenage dealer named Fibs and interrogates him at knife point for information
about who sold to Ryan. Fibs says he doesn’t know, and his high panicked voice alerts
two nearby enforcers. Fibs runs and Grant beats the crap out of them…
…excuse me, did someone use a neck snapping sound effect? Okay, Rambo.
Grant corners Fibs again, flashing his badge this time, and forcing the kid to
give up the trap house location. Fibs takes him to a giant industrial slaughterhouse run by
back alley entrepreneur Lexy and the Cook whose name is Lethan. Yes, I said LETHAN. What the
freak is up with giving everyone weird names.
Grant wants to go inside, but Fibs reminds
him the gang will rip their faces off if he approaches the building with someone they
don’t know. Fibs tells him to call in backup…
…but Grant won’t do that. Fibs realizes he’s
gone rogue. Great – leave. Right now. Open the door and run. Will the cop come back? Maybe, but
it’s not like he can offer you immunity. He’d have to sign it off with his department, which doesn’t
know he’s here. So, there’s no benefit to staying unless there are child locks on the door. Even
then, wait until you’re out of the car and bolt.
And Grant, you aren’t suggesting you were
going to walk into an illicit candy factory run by brutal, go-go gadget psychopaths
with nothing but a sweater and a handgun, are you? You saw your brother’s liquified
head. If – IF – you go in that building, it’s wearing the freaking mech suit from Edge of
Tomorrow. You better gear up in full PPE for sarin traps and be blinged out in smoke grenades, too.
And frankly, this whole “I can’t tell my boss I was snooping” crap is ridiculous. You can’t
tell him you accosted a teenager at knifepoint and beat up two randos for information, but you
CAN say one of your informants heard about your brother’s death and wants to give up the location
of the next trap house in exchange for immunity.
Fibs takes pity on Grant and agrees to get
him into the building in a couple days.
The next day, the Chief calls Grant into his
office. He shows him video surveillance from his alley fight and suspends him. Maybe this is
a great time to tell him about the trap house, then? Say you were contacting an informant who had
info on the location when two guys jumped you.
Across town, Fibs goes to sell goodies to a
clown named Roscoe when he’s ambushed by one of the gang’s higher ups, Cormac. Cormac warns
that Fibs is behind on payments and arms-length away from getting the soul beaten out of his
body. Cormac offers to forgive his debt if Fibs robs Lethan for him. Shaking in his nikes,
Fibs is forced to agree…with one condition.
He loops Grant into the deal. Cormac meets with
Grant, suspicious that he’s the man on the alley brawl video making the rounds everywhere,
apparently. Grant claims that he’s willing to rob a notorious gang leader for no reward
because he owes his buddy Fibs a favor. Riiight.
Fibs gets sent into the factory to pick
up more product and study the layout. The whole place has a real 90s college party
vibe to it. He sneaks out to explore, spots the money, and watches Lexy
step over a trip wire at ankle level.
Back at Roscoe’s clown emporium, he lays
out the super complicated building specs of a single section of this massive complex.
Cormac and Grant decide tonight is the night they attack because neither has ever
seen literally any action movie before.
Earlier, Grant told Fibs that this slaughterhouse
building was historical, which means it might be possible to find old maps or blueprints online. At
the very least, they should survey the perimeter, count guards, and locate secondary exits.
Curiously, Fibs doesn’t tell them about the trip wire. Sly dog. But neither does
Grant, so…everyone’s expendable in the pursuit of personal vengeance, I guess.
With barely more than a couple handguns, the dollar store lineup for the S
Squad approaches the building…in slow motion…and completely undisguised.
Suddenly, Roscoe notices a tail. They turn to find a kid from Fibs’ school – Mo – has
followed them. Fibs tries to scare him off, but Cormac only has one dimension, so he cuts
eyeholes in the kids’ beanie and welcomes him to the gang, saying he can’t rat him out if he’s
an accomplice…which isn’t how anything works, so what he’s really saying is that he can’t be
a rat if he’s dead…and this kid is definitely dying three steps into this place.
Fibs approaches the door and lures the guard out before Cormac pops a
hole in his neck like a capri sun.
Not gonna lie, my scorn levels
were rising with literally every step these people took to this point.
But then we get this little scene.
And I realized this is actually a comedy.
Ten seconds later, the group wanders into the unguarded main office to find the
money is missing or has already been stashed in the safe. Irritated, Cormac
makes as much noise as he can short of screaming and no joke TAKES OFF HIS HOOD.
They run back to the door they entered through to find it locked, so of course, they have to double
back looking for a second exit. Real shame you didn’t do literally any prep for this mission.
Mo notices a drop-down attic door overhead and…
I shouldn’t find this funny. But look…he died
three steps into this place, just like I said.
Cormac drags Fibs away. Grant seizes
his opportunity and sneaks off on his own. But just around the corner, he encounters
Kevin McCallister’s next trap. He walks into a pool of glue, which costs him his shoes.
He steps out and repurposes his balaclava so he can monkey bar his way across via a steaming
hot pipe overhead. Which…no he doesn’t. Cheap balaclavas like the ones they’re using are
probably made out of spandex or some other very meltable material, so all he’s doing is
giving his hands a painful forever glove. If it’s wool, it’s heat resistant, but
only barely at these thicknesses.
He reaches another room littered with
crushed glass. He stepped right onto it with his unprotected feet to grab a broom
left within reach, triggering another trap.
This was absolutely grabbable from the hall, so
this trap is bad and Lethan should feel bad. But also, in a pinch, take off your weird hoodie
vest and sweep with that. And sweep faster.
Cormac notices Grant is gone and sends
Roscoe and his girl Sandy off to kill him.
Back in the glass room, Grant has barely
swept two feet into the room when a guard ANNOUNCES HIS PRESENCE, giving Grant the
chance to hide in a very checkable corner.
Yo goon! Turn your head. Turn…turn it.
After he’s gone, Grant continues his half arsed sweep, leaving bloody footprints behind.
You know, I bet if you laid the broom down the long way like a balance beam and just tore
your hoodie down the seam and laid it out you could probably balance, walk, and jump
to the other side without any issue at all.
Cormac and Fibs find their own trap.
Hilarious that this gang supposedly changes headquarters every week and still has time
to lay out elaborate jigsaw traps. Maybe the illicit candy they’re selling is really just a
side hustle to pay for their escape room hobby.
Grant comes to a dead end with a human-sized
ventilation shaft leading who knows here. So naturally, that must be the way to go. Go where?
Jigsaw’s laboratory? The tunnel of ninja stars?
Fibs and Cormac find a hatch marked by the
gang’s symbol that leads to a baby’s nursery straight outta Barbarian. Fibs refuses
to leave it behind, while Cormac warns, the baby’s basically a screaming tracker
and someone’s gonna want it back.
Out in the hall, Roscoe saves Sandy from a
swinging Samurai sword before they hear something moving in the ducts overhead. It’s Grant, trapped
at the start of a tunnel full of mouse traps.
Roscoe slices through the duct
like it’s made out of paper. Grant hits a trap and Roscoe slices again.
Stop. Moving. Forward. You’re not in that big a hurry and the stuff these guys smoke has ground
their attention span down to nothing. Wait for them to move on, then take the mouse trap you’ve
already tripped and use it to trip the others.
Instead, he continues crawling.
They stab Grant through the thigh, loudly taunting until Sandy notices a guard
watching. Roscoe takes one to the back as they retreat and the guard triggers another trap.
Lexy finds the guard’s body and puts the rest on high alert, but she doesn’t bother to walk
the extra ten feet in the direction of the gunshots he was firing. It’s not like anyone
could be hiding literally around the corner.
Now bleeding, Grant drags himself down the
shaft to the cook’s room. Lethan’s jacked up on nose candy and fumes. Grant waits for him to
leave and lowers himself down silently – where was that stealth a few minutes ago, copper?
Casually, he loosens the faucet on a flammable gas cannister, and we’ve officially added
Hitchcock’s ticking bomb to the mix. In a building full of electrical wires, metal scraping
metal, and oh yeah METH SMOKERS, it’s only a matter of time before a spark blows her sky high.
Cormac, Fibs, and Checkov’s baby make it to another nondescript corridor before the baby
attracts another guard. As Cormac lunges in to kill him, Fibs sneaks away, rolling a nat
20 for unbelievable luck, encountering ZERO booby traps as he navigates hallways full of
locked rooms and finds a storage room to hide.
And I finally understand how this gang is able to
set this all up anew every week – by half-arsing everything. Where’s the sarin, guys? Why
did you only set up ONE shooting pipe?
Sandy half carries Roscoe until the wound
inflames and he can’t go on without a little nose sugar inspiration. He spots a packet
on the floor and his senses betray him.
Anyone who’s been with me for a while should
know how to disarm a bear trap by now – put pressure on the springs to either side of
his foot so he can remove pressure from the pan and lift when the springs come apart.
But you should also know that he just alerted half the building to their location. They have
two guns and a samurai sword. Time for Sandy to ride or die by carefully stepping out of
sight and ambushing anyone who investigates Roscoe’s screaming with a shot to the head.
Unfortunately, Sandy doesn’t know how to do any of that. And of course, she’s not really
ride or die. When she realizes she can’t get the trap open with her hands, she bounces, saying
she’s going to “get help.” Sure you are, sport.
Cormac uses movie magic to track Fibs’
location and snatches the kid right out of his arms. But almost immediately,
Lexy appears. Cormac knows it’s her kid and taunts her that she won’t shoot. He gets
her to drop her gun and kick it over to him…
…but, like. Now she’s seen your faces and you’ve
endangered her kid. I know it’s harsh, but bang bang solves these problems pretty easily. You
don’t even have to kill the kid. Or, if you’re too squeamish, grab the gun, put the kid at the far
back of the room, have her get down on her stomach and leave, locking them in behind you. I mean, she
will eat your heart out later if she lives, so...
Cormac tells her he’ll give her the baby back
if she opens the safe for him and she agrees VERY quickly…but not because it’s an easy
decision. She knows where all the traps are.
Lexy puts on a quick waterworks show to compel
Cormac to give her the kid…because then she can lead him into a trap without a second thought.
Terrible exchange made, he tells her to lead.
Nearby, Sandy stumbles into the hallway lined
with live electrical wires leading to a very large EXIT sign that is obviously not an exit.
She needs to look for an electrical insulator like plastic or rubber. She’s wearing sneakers,
which should have rubber soles. Take them off, wear them on your hands and see if you can
pull the bases connected to the wires out of the walls. Probably not, and like I said
that is probably a fake exit, but it’d make your gallows walk a little less painful.
Instead she panics and gets tangled.
Back in the lab, Grant limps after the tweaked
out cook. Lethan is oblivious to the man with the gun to his head. But Grant’s out for revenge,
which means just ending him isn’t enough. He calls out to Lethan, who dodges as Grant fires.
Roided out on nose candy, Lethan attacks like a juggernaut, disarming and overpowering Grant
in seconds. Grant manages to knock him back and shoot him twice before a random distraction
from Lexy allows Lethan to stab him in the leg.
Bro – triple tap to the brain and
you’re done. Get out of here.
In the hall, exactly what we all knew would
happen happens. Lexy leads Cormac into a trap, and triggers steam to burn his
face, allowing her to escape.
Raid: Redemption style Lexy sicks
her clan of dope fiends on them, promising free product in exchange for their
heads. And guys, this is comedy gold. Every shot of them wandering the halls on the
hunt comes complete with zombie noises…for some reason.
Don’t worry, this is the tesseract of buildings, expanding and contracting
depending on how big the movie needs it to be at any given moment, so they’ll be a while.
In the hallway, our three remaining dudes faceoff as Cormac tries to kill Fibs, then
convinces Grant to do it by telling him Fibs was Ryan’s dealer. What an organizational oddity
– Fibs seems to be this gang’s ONLY dealer.
The pack of junkies finally finds
all three guys when their speeches are done. Fights and gunfire break out all
over the place, accomplishing nothing. But at least we get more zombie grunting.
Cormac barricades himself in the office, finding Lexy and the baby there.
She gives him the safe combination, but he’s grown wise to her games, telling
her she’ll open it and if nothing springs out and maims her, he’ll let them go free.
It’s a miracle – you’re finally learning.
But then, *sigh*, she tells him the safe is
empty and motions to a painting on the wall, saying that’s where the money is. This, he
just walks up to and opens. And there’s cash, but… tell her to take it down for you
and shove it in a sack, just in case.
He tells her he still wants the safe, but
she refuses, this time with fear in her eyes. He forces her to her knees, gripping
her by the neck as she spins the lock.
Think with your whole brain, moron. This position
forces you into fighting range with a woman who already tricked you, and you’re kneeling by a safe
you know is booby trapped. If it contains a nerve gas or explosive, you’re dead too. Don’t bother.
Grab the baby and she’ll do anything you ask.
As she enters the last number, she
begs for her life. It doesn’t work.
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT AVOIDABLE. Bruh, why didn’t
you tell him what was inside it? Agree to open it, but say you have to stand off to
the side because a bolt’s going to fly out. He would probably have believed you.
And of course, she was telling the truth – the safe is otherwise empty. So you lost your
eye for literally nothing. Well done.
Cormac grabs the cash, and steps into the hall
just in time for a run in with Grant and Fibs. He offers to split the cash, but Grant
would rather fight again for…no reason.
Dude, you’ve already let the cook escape and
failed spectacularly at the only thing you came here to do. Cormac is no one and nothing
to you. At least, leave the building first.
The fight’s short and convenient. They
both land a few solid blows before Cormac gets him on the ground right under a
booby trap. Grant sees the dead weight snare overhead and punches Cormac’s throat
before administering some fatal acupuncture.
Fibs dips out to go grab the baby, as
if he knew exactly where to find it, before returning to Grant. And because it can’t
just be some random baby, Grant realizes it has his brother’s unique heterochromatic eyes.
Cool…so you’re leaving now, right? You’ve got something more important than
revenge to worry about…RIGHT?!
Grant hands the baby back to Fibs and tells him
to leave and take the baby somewhere safe. Oh, yeah. He hasn’t been able to find a way out
before this and the junkie zombies are still wandering aimlessly, but sure, abandon your
nephew’s fate to a teenage drug dealer.
Grant says he can’t leave until he kills the
cook, but Lethan finds Fibs first and Grant hears him scream. Grant finds Fibs bound in the
lab and Lethan ready for him. He slices Grant’s arm with some sort of tool, and smashes a
bottle of chemical across his face. Then, he goes for another snort of nose candy.
He reels back, screaming in agony.
We cut back to the last time Grant
found the lab and learn he crushed broken glass and laced the cook’s
lines with it. As this is the first clever thing he’s done in his entire life,
I’ll award him a fraction of a gold star.
Which I immediately revoke, as he gets to his
feet, sends Grant away with the baby AGAIN and decides to beat Lethan instead of ending
him once and for all. Grab a metal pipe and impale him. Smash the entire lab table
on him. Do ANYTHING except this crap.
Grant stops fighting and pulls out a cigarette,
joking that with all the candy this guy snorts, he can’t smell the gas that has filled the
room since Grant opened the cannister.
He lights the match - WITHOUT KNOWING
IF FIBS OR THE BABY HAVE MADE IT OUT YET - and the entire place blows off
screen…because who’d want to see that?
Fibs walks away flush with cash and leaves
the baby at the hospital. Because someone watched Extraction, a barely incognito Grant
reappears INSIDE THE POLICE PRECINCT without anyone but the Chief noticing. And Lexy reigns
supreme as the new queen of her own gang.
So…you accomplished nothing, Grant. Way to go.
What a happy ending…for the world’s dumbest heist crew. There’s a reason real-world criminals
stake out their targets for weeks or months before D-day – a set of blueprints showing emergency
exits, a general schedule for Lexy and Lethan, and a headcount of goons would have
made this entire thing much easier.
There’s no point wandering around blindly in a
maze full of tweaked out losers who can be bought with the casual promise of drugs. Every hallway is
an unknowable death trap and every room contains a starving tiger until you know otherwise.
Grant could have called in police backup at any time using Fibs as an informant, but he wanted
revenge for himself and therefore everyone else had to die. If he had called the police, a
raid could have gotten other cops killed, but with most of the exits booby trapped it
would have put an end to Lethan and Lexy too.
No joke, since he doesn’t care about anyone
– not even himself – Grant wouldn’t need to enter the building at all to kill the cook,
if that’s what he truly wanted. It’d be as easy as rigging a fire at every exit save
for one and waiting with a rifle trained on the clear exit for a man in a gas mask to emerge.
For those reasons, I think TRAP HOUSE was Beaten.
And remember, don’t risk your life
if you can risk other people’s lives.