Tourist Trap (1979) review

8. Tourist Trap (1979)

Directed by: David Schmoeller

Produced by: J. Larry Carroll

Screenplay by: David Schmoeller, J. Larry Carroll

Starring: Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Dawn Jeffory, Keith McDermott, Chuck Connors

Admit it, we all find the concept of mannequins and wax figures a little creepy on a fundamental level, right? I’ve reviewed “Mystery of the Wax Museum” and the remake “House of Wax” starring Vincent Price, but today’s film, “Tourist Trap,” is a very different take on the subject, and an underrated one to boot. It has a familiar setup with a group of young people who come across danger on a road trip out in the desert; in this case, it’s a gas station tourist trap that features animated waxwork figures, that so happens to be controlled by a masked assailant with telekinetic abilities. I think the story has a couple too many moving pieces and the action isn’t directed very well, but the production design and off-beat tone, plus a committed performance from Chuck Connors, help it surpass its flimsy premise.

The movie opens with a couple—Eileen (Robin Sherwood) and Woody (Keith McDermott)—stopped on the road after their car gets a flat tire. Woody goes to find a gas station, while their friends Becky (Tanya Roberts), Jerry (Jon Van Ness) and Molly (Jocelyn Jones)—who drove separately—pick up Eileen and go looking for Woody. Eventually, they come across Slausen’s Lost Oasis, surmising that Woody must be there; however, the jeep breaks down, and they meet owner Mr. Slausen (Connors), who seems friendly, albeit awkward, and embittered about the decline of his tourist trap business with the loss of the local expressway. While he helps Jerry with the jeep, the women explore the museum of mannequins, one of which is modeled after Slausen’s deceased wife; but when they walk to the neighboring house looking for a phone, they’re instead met by scenes of terror, specifically sentient wax figures and a maniac in a mask, looking to add new victims to the collection.

When I say the movie has a lot in common with “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “The Hills Have Eyes,” I mean that literally, because production designer Robert A. Burns had the same job on both those films, and here he fills the screen with bizarre visuals and a sound design that’s both eerie and somehow amusing; the opening with Woody first encountering the mannequins, paired with audio of insane shrieking laughter, is a sequence that actually makes you giggle from how weird and nerve-wracking it is. The special effects themselves are simple but effective, just creating this vibe that fills you with anxiety; this movie is only rated PG, yet it has concepts that are genuinely disturbing without ever being too graphic, as showcased in some of the awkward-looking kills. But the one girl Tina (Dawn Jeffory-Nelson) dies from her face being covered in plaster until she suffocates; just the idea, coupled with the sound of her panicked breathing, makes for a terrifying scene. Burns would later work on “The Howling” and “Re-Animator,” becoming one of the more respected names in the horror industry.

With that said, the movie suffers from the condition of having a little too much going on. I’m okay with these mannequins being possessed and attacking on their own, and this masked person being a direct cause of it, but why give him telekinetic powers as well? It just feels like an excuse to have an extra threat for no reason; this apparently wasn’t in the original script, but rather an addition insisted by producer Charles Band. The pacing in general is actually quite good, except in some of the chase scenes; a lot of the body language just feels off, like there should be more energy put into running away from this guy. There’s a lot of effort to emulate the look and tension of something like “Texas” and it generally works, but so much of that action just leaves you feeling breathless, while here it takes a while before you get a chase that puts you on the characters’ level of fear.

It also doesn’t help that the performances aren’t that great; Jocelyn Jones has some believable mannerisms as Molly in the third act, and like I said, just the sound of Tina breathing is enough to invoke a panic attack, so credit Dawn Jeffory-Nelson for that, but the only one who really stands out is Connors—yes, the Rifleman himself—as Slausen. He’s essentially the Norman Bates of the movie; you spend most of his scenes not sure what to make of him. He can be soft-spoken and innocent, but with a possible sinister undertone; his first scene has him casually talking to the girls while they’re skinny dipping in an oasis and he’s holding a shotgun. Slausen may not seem entirely threatening, but you just know he’s hiding something; it’s a great effort in two-facedness by Connors, who was trying to reinvent himself, after years in wholesome television roles wearing a cowboy hat.

“Tourist Trap” came out in theaters only a few months after “Halloween,” soon enough to avoid the stigmatism of being derivative of other better slasher films. However, it still ended up just blending into the crowd during its release in 1979, perhaps due to another pair of horror classics that came out shortly after, George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” and Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” But for a low-budget project, this film has a lot of creativity and is quite unique, using a nice blend of eccentric humor and mildly spine-chilling concepts. There was another remake of “House of Wax” that came out in 2005 which was closer in story to this movie, but aside from having one of the victims played by Paris Hilton, is pretty forgettable. There might be scenes in here that will have you unsure what to think or make you ask why, but once you witness them, you won’t forget them.

My rating: 8/10