96) Frightmare, AKA Horror Star (1983) - A Nostalgic Horror Rental

 "A star in life is a star in death."

Director

Norman Thaddeus Vane

Cast

Ferdy Mayne - Conrad Radzoff

Jennifer Starrett - Meg

Alan Stock - Oscar

Carlene Olson - Eve

Luca Bercovici - Saint

Scott Thomson - Bobo

Donna McDaniel - Donna

Jeffrey Combs - Stu

Leon Askin - Wolfgang

Barbara Pilavin - Mrs. Radzoff

 

When it comes to VHS tapes once hidden amidst the old shelves of the video rental stores of yore, the 1983 supernatural slasher Frightmare definitely fits among them - hidden and overlooked. 

That's kind of how I found this movie. I came across a VHS copy, plastic clamshell and all, in a bin of movies someone donated to my local library. It's a clean copy, and I grabbed it for free. 

Not to be confused with the 1974 British horror comedy also called Frightmare, the 1983 Frightmare is also known as Horror Star.

Various sources on-line give different release dates for this flick. Wikipedia says 1981. Others say 1982. I'm going with the online horror database allhorror.com which says Frightmare was released Sept. 9, 1983. 

Just for kicks, I also checked whether this movie has any DVD releases. It does. 

The weirdos over at Troma Entertainment released Frightmare on DVD in 2005. I also found a double feature copy of Frightmare from East West Entertainment packaged with Vault of Horror (1973), based on the EC Comic of the same name, and which stars the fourth incarnation of Dr. Who himself, Tom Baker. Stay tuned for that!

Before now, I had never seen nor heard of Frightmare so I really went into this blind. I didn't even so much as read the synopsis on the back cover. I went solely on the title and cover art alone. The cover art, by the way, is completely different from the poster I uploaded to this post. The picture on the clamshell can be found here. -----> *CLICK ME* 

So, basically this movie centers on some pesky college drama students, all of whom are huge fans of horror icon Conrad Razkoff (Ferdy Mayne), and then they die. Spoiler warning, by the way!
Actually the plot is a little more detailed than that. 

It starts with Razkoff playing a vampire in a denture commercial. During a shoot, he gets reamed by the director for giving a supposedly bad performance in his little denture ad. 

Razkoff later spots the director sitting on the edge of an outdoor balcony on the second floor going over some notes. Since the director hurt his feelings earlier, and probably gave him a tummy ache as a result, he sneaks up on him and pushes him off with his cane. 

The director dies when he hits the pavement below. 

Afterwards, Razkoff visits the school where these same drama students are enrolled to discuss his past performances in horror films. During his lecture, he passes out from the excitement around him. Or, perhaps he collapses because his feelings are still hurt. I don't know.

Meg (Jennifer Starrett), one of Razkoff's fans, is able to revive him.    

As he's sitting at home in bed recovering from the bad feels and collapsing, one of his former directors, the obese and sweaty Wolfgang (Leon Askin) pays him a visit.

Ferdy Mayne as Conrad Razkoff in Frightmare.

They discuss what will happen after Razkoff dies. In an attempt to fool the director, he closes his eyes and feigns death. And he does it rather well. 

Wolfgang is dumbfounded that Razkoff actually died right in front of him while they were discussing Razkoff dying. So, he takes the opportunity to speak his mind and ridicule the actor for making life difficult for so many years. 

Suddenly, Razkoff lunges at him, smothers him with a pillow, and kills him. 

And soon after, Razkoff dies, too! This time, he really dies. 

After his body is placed inside a mausoleum, those same drama students - Meg, Saint, Bobo, Eve, Donna, Oscar, and Stu - sneak into the cemetery at night and steal Razkoff's body, coffin and all.

They bring it back to their student house where they hold a horror party which includes wearing masks of their favorite horror monsters during dinner, and dancing with the cadaver of Conrad Razkoff. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Razkoff (Barbara Pilavin) is desperate to find the body of her husband. She consults a medium in order to channel his spirit so he can tell her where he is. 

And this actually works. Meanwhile, the body of Razkoff rises from the dead in a literal explosion, and he seeks vengeance on the students, one by one, who stole and desecrated his body. He even has telepathic powers that he uses to terrify and kill his victims. Once, he uses his telekinesis to set one of the girls on fire. At another time, he makes his coffin float down some stairs and ram another victim to death.  

There's not much to the story. It's very cut and dry.

I'm grateful for the apparent effort within the movie to create something thrilling. Perhaps, time hasn't been friendly to Frightmare causing the frightening aspects, such as the overuse of fog, several close-ups with colored lighting, and awkward low angles when the story grows tense, to come across as unintentionally laughable. 

Mayne deserves applause, though, for pulling off a convincing cadaver amid all the stuff the other actors do to him, such as placing a live raven on his head. Mayne doesn't flinch, breath, smirk, move or blink. That's talent!
The rest of the acting is like watching community playhouse. For many of the actors, they're just getting through their lines and movements. 
There are some inconsistent cutaways which make me wonder who the hell was editing this movie. A few scenes manage to be a little unsettling and gruesome such as one where Razkoff pulls Oscar's tongue out because, evidently, Razkoff doesn't mess around! 

But despite the effort, Frightmare tries too hard to be a bone-chilling flick, using cliché horror elements to do so.
It's truly a standard horror movie offering all the day to day scares that would work just as well inside a haunted house attraction at Halloween. 
The plot could easily be accidental. There are a few scenes where the actors on screen just run around in a panic in the sloppiest way possible as though the director told everyone "just chase each other around the scene in a scary way. We'll provide the fog and constant close-ups, and just see what we get. Ok? Go team!" It's pretty messy.
Frightmare is the quintessential Friday night Creature Feature that used to air on random local stations. Fans of gore might enjoy it slightly more as there's just enough in there to classify it as a slasher. Heads are lobbed off in slow motion. Guilty parties are set ablaze. Others are bludgeoned to death with floating coffins. Movies like this are entertaining enough for a late night thrill, only to be reduced to "that one movie with that guy...what was it called again?" later on.

I don't really know what this movie is trying to be. A horror comedy? A gory macabre chiller?

Despite its low-budget appearance, Frightmare does have a few notable things going for it. 

Actors in Frightmare acting really, really hard! Hot sticky acting
everywhere...on the walls...in the cracks. Everywhere!

It stars a young Jeffrey Combs in his first horror movie debut. Combs since went on to appear in many other, and better, horror movies including well-known titles such as Re-Animator (1985), Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Frighteners (1996) and Would You Rather (2012). 

On top of that, Scott Thomson also stars in this flick. Thomson has appeared in a lot of movies, horror and otherwise, such as Police Academy 1,3, and 4, Ghoulies (1984) Twister (1996), and Jack Frost (1998). 

And Ferdinand "Ferdy" Mayne strikes me as a poor man's Christopher Lee. At least in this movie, he does. 

In fact, Lee and Mayne appear together in the horror sequel, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985).

But I certainly don't want to dishonor this veteran German-British stage and film actor who has appeared in a lot of films between 1943 to 1995. 

Mayne has shared the screen with many noteworthy actors such as Peter Sellers in The Bobo (1967), Roman Polanski in The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), Ringo Starr in The Magic Christian (1969) Ryan O' Neal in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer (1984).
Mayne sadly passed away in 1998 at the age of 81. 

The passage of time as turned Frightmare into more of a museum piece as it's Jeffrey Combs' horror debut. And it's a quaint little nostalgic piece of VHS history that surely once warmed the shelf of the horror aisle at any given rental store back in the day. I bet it was often overlooked. In these regards, it's fun to watch.  As a story, I'm not sure what it's trying to be. Despite its best efforts, I was left with a mundane sloppy mess.

95) Waxwork (1988) - A Nostalgic Horror Rental

"They'll make a movie about anything nowadays."

Director

Anthony Hickox

Cast

Zach Galligan - Mark

Deborah Foreman - Sarah

Michelle Johnson - China

Dana Ashbrook - Tony

Clare Carey - Gemma

David Warner - David Lincoln

Patrick Macnee - Sir Wilfred

Mihaly Meszaros - Hans

John Rhys-Davis - Wolfman

The prime reason the 1988 film Waxwork stands out in my head above other horror movies on the decade is because it stars Zach Galligan. It's the only other movie I associate with him outside of his character, Billy Peltzer, in Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins II: The New Batch (1990). 

Incidentally, I've seen him in the Tales from the Crypt episode "Strung Along" as well as his cameo in Warlock: The Armageddon. 

That's no surprise because Waxwork director, Anthony Hickox, also directed Warlock: The Armageddon. He also directed Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1993). 

Galligan is also in the slasher sequel Hatchet III (2013). I'm certainly not trying to water down Galligan as an actor. Listening to him in interviews, he seems very passionate about being an actor. Galligan certainly stands by the work he's done, and he's fun to watch on screen. Also, I hope to see him return as Billy Peltzer in a third Gremlins movie. He briefly return as Billy, much to the joy of fans like myself, in a Mountain Dew commercial that aired earlier this year. Maybe that's a precursor of things to come. Galligan certainly Tweets often about "Gremlins 3."

With Waxwork, Galligan isn't the only actor in the movie to have appeared in other classic (more or less) horror films. It's loaded with several names that are worth dropping. 

Deborah Foreman who appears in the 1986 slasher film April Fool's Day - a movie I plan on reviewing - is in this. She's also in 1989's Lobster Man from Mars also directed by Hickox.

Waxwork also stars Michelle Johnson who also appears in the English speaking Mexican horror flick Beaks: The Movie (1987), as well as Dr. Giggles (1992), and Death Becomes Her (1992). 

Most notably, the film stars English actors David Warner and Patrick Macnee. 

Macnee is well-known  for playing John Steed in the 1960s espionage series The Avengers. He can also be seen in the other 80s horror flick The Howling which I'll review shortly. I have a copy of it sitting on my desk as I write this. 

And I can't fail to mention that in Waxwork, actor John Rhys-Davis plays a character who transforms to a werewolf. Who doesn't want to see that?

Waxwork certainly isn't the first, nor the last horror movie that takes place in a wax museum. There's quite a list of such films. Vincent Price's 1953 classic House of Wax comes to mind right away along with its loose 2005 remake of the same name starring Paris Hilton. Terror in the Wax Museum (1973) and The House That Dripped Blood (1971) are a few others as well. Wax museums are a perfect setting for terror because they're simply terrifying places. The realism behind the blank motionless stares of wax figures can be unsettling.  

So, the story begins with a disturbing scene of a guy getting his head shoved into a fireplace. This sets the macabre tone.

We then cut away to a suburb where rich boy Mark Loftmore (Zach Galligan) is eager to get away from his babying mother who won't even let him have a cup of coffee lest the caffeine hinder him somehow. 

Loftmore meets up with his college buddies. Two of them, Sarah (Deborah Foreman) and China (Michelle Johnson) tell Mark and the others about a strange encounter they had with the reticent proprietor of a wax museum, David Lincoln (David Warner), which is oddly located in the middle of a residential neighborhood. 

Lincoln invited the girls and their friends on a special viewing at midnight. 

Zach Galligan in Waxwork.

The crew decide to go see this place, and find themselves to be the only visitors at the waxwork's midnight tour. 

Inside, the displays are all grim depictions of horror scenes with standard horror characters - werewolves, vampires, executioners, etc.

As the friends separate and meander through the museum, one of the college kids, Tony (Dana Ashbrook - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, Return of the Living Dead II) crosses the barrier of a display and finds himself suddenly in the middle of a dark forest. 

Rather than collapse with fear at being in a different location all of a sudden, he thinks his friends are pulling a joke on him, or spiked his drink. It's a horror cliché at its worst. 

Tony finds a secluded cabin, and walks on in still thinking it's all one big joke. There's a man inside clearly in distress, yelling at Tony to get out. Of course, Tony sticks around.

This stranger, played by John Rhys-Davis, turns into a werewolf right before Tony's eyes and attacks him. 

In no time, Tony also starts turning into a werewolf just as two hunters with rifles and silver bullets barge in. 

Soon after, the others begin crossing the barriers of various wax displays and find themselves in the horrific scenes. To them, those scenes are now reality.

Loftmore quickly realizes what's going on as he escapes one of the displays.  

When he goes to the police, who of course don't believe him (useless cops...another standard horror cliché) he turns to a family friend, Sir Wilfred (Patrick Macnee) who explains the true nature and intent of the wax museum, the proprietor, and why so many of people around town have gone missing. 

Fans of gore will surely get something out of this movie. It's like a Halloween walk-through attraction on film. 

Waxwork is a product of its day in style and special effects. That's not necessarily a criticism. What is a criticism, however, is the film's use of banal elements that were tiresome, even in the 1980s - bully cops who serve little to no purpose, insanely clueless teenagers, laughably bad decisions, and ancient evils wanting to take over the earth. 

This is supposed to be a comedy horror, but the comedy is just lame.  

Aside from that, the scene transitions are too quick. And the fighting scene in the film's climax is cringe and embarrassing to watch. Maybe that's where the comedy was hiding this whole time?

There is a small reference to my favorite musical horror Little Shop of Horrors. That part was fun.

This movie feels loose at the seems. There's little to nothing for the audience to become invested in as the plot is rushed through and the characters are pretty much throw-away characters. I just sat and waited for token character after token character to get picked off, one by one.

Michelle Johnson as "China."

It seems all effort went into the movie sets, make-up effects, and the salary for those high-end actors. 

A sequel was released in 1992 - Waxwork II: Lost in Time with Hickox back in the director's chair. Galligan returns in part two and is joined by the legendary Bruce Campbell as well as David Carradine and Patrick Macnee once again. I'm willing to give it a try.

I think all Waxwork has going for it is the nostalgia behind it, the ride from one horror scene to another, and watching John Rhys-Davis's performance of a man turning into a werewolf. Everything else is flat and unimaginative.

94) Rent-A-Pal (2020)

"There's nothing like a little friendly competition, right pal?"

Director

Jon Stevenson

Cast

Brian Landis Folkins - David Brower

Wil Wheaton - Andy

Kathleen Brady - Lucille Brower

Amy Rutledge - Lisa

 

The 2020 movie Rent-A-Pal is as fitting a movie to watch among the "Nostalgic Horror Rental" reviews I've been posting recently as I approach review number 100. It's not necessarily a rental for me. But it's a thriller surrounding a VHS tape, so it fits just as well.

Rent-A-Pal takes place in the 1990s sometime, and centers on lonely bachelor David Brower (Brian Landis Folins). 

He has been consulting a video dating service called "Video Rendezvous" for several months with no success in being matched with someone else.

Brower lives with this 70+ year old mother, Lucille (Kathleen Brady) who suffers from dementia. His father was a jazz musician and composer who killed himself 10 years before. This leaves David, the only child, unemployed as caring for his mom is a full-time duty. 

While stopping in to Video Rendezvous to make an updated video - an experience that goes poorly for David - he finds a copy of a video labeled "Rent-A-Friend" hidden in a display of VHS tapes near the front counter.  

He purchases it, and takes it home. 

The video immediately starts with his new "pal", dressed like he just walked off a family portrait, sitting in an easy chair amidst a solid white background. The set is a poorly dressed living room setting.
"Hi!" the guy in the video says. 
His name is Andy (Wil Wheaton) and the video progresses like a conversation between two people meeting each other for the first time. Andy pauses to allow the viewer to answer his questions.

This initial viewing is too awkward for David, so he turns it off.

The receptionist at Video Rendezvous calls him the next morning letting him know a girl named Lisa wants to match with him after watching his updated tape. 

He goes there right away, and when he gets to the reception desk, David realizes he forgot his wallet. He rushes back to the house, grabs it, and hurries back. But when he returns, it turns out Lisa has already matched with someone else. 

Heavy hearted, David checks out her tape anyways to see what he lost out on. It turns out they have a lot in common. Lisa would certainly have been an ideal match. 

So, he turns on Rent-A-Pal and begins confiding in Andy. He shares how his attempts to find romance seem to lead to nowhere. David also talks about how abusive his mother was. And Andy shares a story about a disatrous date to a prom. Andy then convinces David to be his friend. 

David keeps returning to the tape for the sake of social interaction, night after night, drinking, talking, playing cards, and sharing personal stories. 

After some time goes by, Video Rendezvous calls David to tell him Lisa's match didn't work out, and that she would like to match with him.

They connect for a date at an arcade roller rink, and the two couldn't have it off any better.

David and Lisa end the night setting up a date for the next day.

Wil Wheaton as "Andy" in Rent-A-Pal.

Nearly beside himself with joy, David rushes home and plays his Rent-A-Pal video to tell Andy about his night.

Andy, however, appears to be jealous and angry, convincing him to call off the date. Evidently,  they were going to play cards the same night.

Things take a dark turn from there to the point where David mixes reality with the rented buddy on his low-budget friendship tape. 

There's a fair amount of movies involving a main character with a social life that's dependent on something inanimate rather than someone real. 

The 2013 movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix is one such movie. Also, the 2011 Mel Gibson film Beaver is another. 

And perhaps Peter Sellers' classic movie Being There (1979) - a film about a man whose knowledge of the outside world is solely from what he's watched on TV - might fall into that sub-genre.. Well, perhaps the Sellers film is a bit of a stretch.

Anyhow, Rent-A-Pal is the first of such films I think I've seen with such a dark and tragic tone, making it the thriller it is. It pulled me in and kept me thinking about it after.

As drawing as Rent-A-Pal is, there's room for more. It felt a little lacking. I was really invested in the character David. While watching, part of me wanted to see David attempt to locate Andy in person. I honestly thought that's where the movie would go, but it didn't even come close to that. There's a lot a movie can do with that scenario. It certainly wasn't a predictable story. I walked away surpised.

On the flip side, keeping Wil Wheaton's character in the confines of the TV screen with only the script his character is given within the movie's story maintains the mystifying, almost inexplicable nature of the video cassette.   

Or is Andy and the video what David makes them? 

The movie still works as a thriller, but left me baffled. My mind couldn't come to grips around David's dependence on Andy once he found a female match through Video Rendezvous. Who's more baffling? David, or the tape? 

The special features on the DVD includes Wheaton's complete video cassette performance which I felt compelled to watch. I noticed that it progresses through all the general experiences friends normally go through - introduction, comradery, intimacy through divulging personal secrets and experiences, humiliation, jealousy, forgiveness, and parting. All this in about 20 minutes of footage.

Brian Landis Folkins in Rent-A-Pal.

To think Wil Wheaton's acting is just him talking to a camera rather than David is impressive. Yet, the movie makes it work perfectly, and convingly. Wheaton manages to be creepy enough in the confines of a TV screen. He's well cast, and has the best voice to really pull off a character like Andy.

Folkins plays a truly sympathetic character. It's easy to feel sorry for David. His performance is fantastic.

Rent-A-Pal is still a movie that works as a thriller, and I found it entertaining, intense at times, tragic, and well made over all. With the neverending surge of eighties and nineties nostalgia being today's trend, this movie gives a seemingly original twist on the thriller genre centering on VHS tapes. 

93) Tourist Trap (1979) - A Nostalgic Horror Rental

"Mr. Slausen, can I use your phone?"

Director

David Schmoeller

Cast

Chuck Conners - Mr. Slausen

Jocelyn Jones - Molly

Jon Van Ness - Jerry

Robin Sherwood -Eileen

Tanya Roberts- Becky

Seldom does a horror film from any decade cross my field of vision, and leave me truly creeped out even several days later. The 2018 movie Hereditary managed to pull it off. So did the insanity that is Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. I had to pause that one just to pull my sanity together.

I first heard about director David Schmoeller's (Puppet Master) 1979 low-budget slasher flick Tourist Trap on one of horror critic James Rolfe's "Cinemassacre's Monster Madness" segments. What I saw on Rolfe's review was compelling enough for me to keep it in my mental list of films to watch.

Recently, I managed to stumble upon a copy on DVD. Score! 

Seldom do I purchase movies that I haven't seen before. But this one I just had to see. I bought it and waited for a quiet evening to watch. 

The movie begins with a young couple (as slashers so often do), Eileen (Robin Lyn Sherwood) and Woody (Keith McDermott) who get a flat tire while driving along a desert road. Obviously no flat tire ever leads to a good outcome in a horror movie. 

Their friends Molly (Jocelyn Jones), Jerry (Jon Van Ness), and Becky (Tanya Roberts - Charlie's Angels) are traveling with them but in another vehicle.

Woody goes looking for help and comes across a rusty ol' gas station that looks like it hasn't conducted  business in years. He walks in anyway, only to find the place deserted. 

Still, he keeps shouting "hello?" just in case someone who hasn't given up on their life in the gas station business is still lingering around. 

Woody hears a moan coming from a back room. So, he goes to see who's back there. Again, in horror movies, a moan or any kind of noise coming from a back room certainly won't lead to any worthwhile discovery. Only hell and regrets lie in the back rooms of empty horror movie gas stations.

When he walks in, he sees what he thinks is a woman lying in bed. So like the good potential customer he is, Woody (a strange man in a woman's bedroom) tries to wake her up.

Suddenly the woman lunges forward, revealing that it's a mannequin. Other mannequins start popping out of various spaces, laughing hysterically at him. The door shuts and locks by itself. Supernatural forces hurl random objects at him. 

He punches a hole through the door, but when he sticks his arm through to unlock it, something takes hold of him and won't let go. Pretty soon, Woody realizes he's trapped.

This scene starts the movie off with a simple but incredibly terrifying tone that continues throughout. It certainly doesn't stray. 

As the others continue driving, they come across a roadside tourist attraction and assume Woody is inside. 

When they pull in, their car mysteriously breaks down. 

As Jerry tries to fix his car, claiming how it has never given him any trouble before, the girls go skinny dipping in a nearby secluded lake. What more vulnerable a position could these young girls put themselves in?

Suddenly they spot a creepy old behemoth of a man in overalls sitting in the grass, holding a rifle, and staring at them.
He comes across as polite as he informs them that they're trespassing, but is willing to let it go. 

As he chats with the girls, who are clearly uncomfortable, he also seems perturb as he mentions his roadside attraction "Mr. Slausen's Tourist Trap" hasn't seen foot traffic in a long time. 

Mr. Slausen (Chuck Conners) offers to help fix their car, but insists the girls come back to his house while he gathers his tools. Of course!

They agree, and wait inside his tourist attraction, which is filled with animatronic mannequins Slausen uses for his attraction. He also has a shrine to his late wife made up of a mannequin in a wig that resembles his wife.

He leaves them inside while he goes to fix their car. Slausen also instructs them that for their own safety. they shouldn't wander outside in the dark.

The phone in the house doesn't work, so Eileen goes out to find one in the house nearby.

She makes her way inside to room around, and finds rooms full of mannequins. Eileen then hears someone call her name. 

She thinks it's a joke, until a stranger in a hideous mannequin mask attacks her. 

When Slausen comes back to his tourist shop where Molly and Becky are still waiting, he tells them 

Jerry was able to drive his car back into town. 

But when he notices Eileen is missing, he suddenly becomes very concerned about her safety and goes out to look for her.

Still waiting inside, Becky and Molly become frustrated and conduct a search party of their own. It doesn't take long before they encounter horrors beyond their expectations, and the truth behind the word "trap."

This is a movie that did it for me as a horror fan. Tourist Trap, despite how schlocky, cliché and predictable it is, is the rarity that comes by every 100 or so films which makes me remember why I keep a blog like this in the first place. It's the kind of horror you stay up late on a Friday night to watch. This is one of the most quintessential of quintessential popcorn horror flicks I have seen in a while.

All the common tropes are there. The movie begins with young attractive girls and a couple beefy guys getting a flat tire in the middle of a deserted highway. 

It has the old, dusty abandoned locations that doesn't seem to dissuade needy intruders from barging in.

Then que the creepy, yet friendly old local offering the naïve group a ride. 

After that, these young attractive girls willingly put themselves in extremely vulnerable situations. Yeah...we know only the worst will happen. 

It's all mixed with unsettling music from Italian composer Pino Donaggio, who was working on director Joe Dante's horror movie Piranha in Los Angeles at the time of filming. His eerie soundtrack is mixed with drones that comes from the mannequins who seem to move under supernatural powers. 

It still has a true and classic horror feel to it that fits well with the movie. It sets the mood perfectly, and adds to the already dreadful look of these mannequins. 

While watching Tourist Trap, movies such as House of Wax (1953) and House of 1000 Corpses (2003) came to mind. The off-putting atmosphere reminded me of these other films.

I mention House of Wax because of the similarities between the use of unsettling likenesses in the haunting figures. Both are absolutely nightmare fuel. 

As for House of 1000 Corpses, its the twisted or darkly satirical imagery of an innocent homestead utilized by completely evil people looking to trap innocent folks.

These movies share an eldritch tone in their otherwise seemingly innocent settings, like a tourist attraction or wax museum, both of which can be unintentionally unsettling. Old places, whether a palace or an abandoned gas station, seem to develop a tingling, haunted atmosphere on their own accord that grows in and around them like the weeds that also take over. A tourist trap is exactly what its name implies. A trap!  

Tourist Trap captures that needed dark tone rather well. Escape is not as easy as it looks. 

Tanya Roberts (left) and Jocelyn Jones in Tourist Trap.

I have to give credit to Jocelyn Jones. She puts in so much effort and energy, pulling off a convincing performance that her character Molly is legitimately terrified.

Tourist Trap plays the mannequins into the story well in both imagery, atmosphere and even soundtrack. 

Tourist Trap deserves recognition for how scary it is alone. Sure, the acting is rough, and it's saturated with all the typical horror stuff audiences have seen over and over, but it's the fear that audiences want. And it doesn't disappoint when it comes to that. It finds a way to succeed in delivering what's expected. Why? Because mannequins are friggin' terrifying. Gimmicky, but scary as hell. 

This movie is so loaded with psychological turmoil, it's hard to tell who's the crazy one by the end of the movie. Otherwise, it's just another slasher flick with naive girls screaming for help, a pervy old man, and a lot of blatantly stupid decisions.