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