Review #273: Tourist Trap (1979)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #27 - Tourist Trap (1979)

Tourist Trap is a film about a group of friends driving down an old mountain road, when car trouble gets them stranded outside of a closed roadside wax museum. The owner, Slauson, offers to help them fix their car, and ultimately the friends get split up and start getting killed- possibly by sentient mannequins, possibly by Slauson's deranged brother (with or without the aid of sentient mannequins).

This is a WILD movie. I first saw it about fifteen years ago, with a group of friends (one of whom described this film as "the worst use of telekinesis ever") and I do think it works best as a group activity. There's some genuinely creepy and unexpected moments, but a lot of the runtime is kind of dull, and the bizarre nature of the villain's methods do nearly all of the heavy lifting to keep this movie interesting- the characters aren't very memorable, the setting (a weird roadside wax museum) is cool but gets kind of lost in the hubbub, and even the villain's character isn't anything special, except for the incredibly weird abilities he has. It's very clear that this movie was inspired by classics like Psycho, Carrie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and House of Wax (though the 2005 remake seems to have taken far more inspiration from Tourist Trap than its namesake), but I'd really rather be watching one of those movies again instead of this.

I have some more to say about this film but it's going to be heavy into spoiler country, so if you don't want spoilers, just know that I think this movie would be fun for a watch with friends but definitely isn't worth a rewatch.

Now, into some spoilers.

This is a film about a guy with telekinesis- that's right, an honest-to-goodness superpower- and instead of using it for fame, money, or power, he uses it to spook passersby that happen to drive past his home, usually by destroying his own belongings in service of mannequin-based shenanigans. (Shemannequins?) Seriously, what the crap is with this villain? Instead of just killing people by flinging a pipe at them (which he's not above doing), he typically just has mannequins pop out of closets and sing at them. Instead of simply stabbing people, or throwing a knife from across the room with telekinesis, he makes a mannequin throw the knife instead. I get that he's supposed to be literally insane, but what drugs were the writers on that made them come up with this? (Except I know the answer to that, it's cocaine. Apparently cocaine use was so rampant on the set, the First Assistant Director once got hit in the head by a bag of coke that fell out of the pocket of someone who was setting up lights.)

The twist of having the brother be dead and Slauson actually being the killer all along was definitely interesting, but on a second watch, knowing that twist really makes the first half of the film weird. (Like, Slauson will leave the house going one direction, and then show up in the other direction as the killer brother. And so on. I guess it's not technically impossible, it's just weird if you know the twist.) Apparently there were earlier versions of the script where there were no supernatural elements (and also at least one version where the mannequins were just haunted), and I really wonder if those versions might have turned out better than what we got.

As I said before, it's a fun watch the first time around, especially with friends, but on a second viewing I really didn't care for most of it. It's good for some laughs but not much else.

Overall Rating: 5/10 Choking Scarves

Ratings Are Stupid: This movie was rated PG by the MPAA, much to the surprise of director David Schmoeller. (The sex and violence weren't intense enough for an R rating, and the PG-13 rating hadn't been invented yet.) Schmoeller has stated he actually felt the film would have been more commercially successful if it had been given an R rating!