Vampiress Review: "Night Trap"

The Gist: An undercover operation to save a group of school girls from a family of vampires requires you to control security cameras and activating traps.

Clarification:  Night Trap is an interactive live action video game in which selections you make decide on how the film you're watching proceeds.   It was originally filmed for the use of an unreleased interactive VHS format in the late 1980's but when that format never came to be it was shelved until video CD media became affordable in the early 1990's when Sega launched it's Sega CD (or Mega CD in Europe) system.

The game while very cheesy by todays standards has garnered a major cult following after it was taken off shelves shortly after it's release once it became the center of a government investigation into the effects of video game violence on children.  The scenes of young girls being taken away by zombies was in part the reason video games today have a rating system similar to movies and because of this infamy the game has been re-released on multiple current formats just based on it's role in pop culture history

Female Vampire Factor: In the game you play the role of a member of a police type force monitoring a slumber party that is being held in a house where it's believed girls have been going missing.  One of the girls at the party Kelli is an undercover member of the force. Kelli is played by the late 80's child actress Dana Plato which made the game that much more controversial as she was in the news often at the time for her troubles with drugs and crime.

The family who owns the home are all vampires with plans of taking the girls as victims.  Problem is a group of blood sucking zombies called the Augers (basically faceless generic devolved humans dressed in all black who limp around the house) have entered the home and are taking the girls for themselves.

There are two women in the vampire family.  The mother Sheila and the Daughter Sarah.   As mentioned you have control over what happens in the game so if you play the game right there will be zero vampirism in the entire process.

But if you capture the Augers and get to the portion of the game where the family are the ones chasing Kelli you will get to a point where different members of the family will corner her.  If you do nothing to save her during those scenes you will see a bite scene with Sheila...

  or Sarah.

Final Opinion: The Sega CD was hands down very much before it's time and it's a bit of a shame that this format of game barely exists anymore as there is a lot of satisfaction with literally controlling who lives and who dies in a film or in this case who is the one doing the killing.  This film is pretty bad but the game is campy fun and there is a payoff if you want it.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5. There was a kickstarter to make a sequel to this but nothing came of it.  If anything during this day and age of it being popular to say how easily offended people are today this game is a great example of how people were much more sensitive 25+ years ago.  The re-release of this game that was once considered too graphic for anyone under 18 is now rated T for appropriate for teenagers.