by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 1, The Film: 3/5, The Extras: 4/5, Overall: 7/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Chuck Conners, Shailar Coby, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Keith McDermott
Intro:
It’s tropey, derivative, oddly paced and unevenly acted, but there’s also gold in them thar hills.
The Film:
It’s impossible to overstate just how influential Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was on genre cinema upon its release in 1974. TCM formalised so many concepts and stylistic flourishes of the gritty, backwoods horror film: grainy visuals with almost documentary style coverage, grotesque antagonists usually with severe deformities and/or mental illnesses and visceral, chaotic violence in an isolated location. The formula was aped over and over again in flicks like (but certainly not limited to): Eaten Alive (1976), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Motel Hell (1980) Just Before Dawn (1981), The Funhouse (1981) and Southern Comfort (1981). Over time, the formula was tweaked and iterated upon. Just as action flicks in the 1980s would be variations of “Die Hard on a boat”, “Die Hard on a bus”, horror flicks would be “Texas Chainsaw in a spooky carnival” or “Texas Chainsaw at your mum’s house” and so on.
Today’s subject, 1979’s Tourist Trap by director David Schmoeller, has a pretty unique spin on the formula. It asks, “What if Texas Chainsaw Massacre but with Carrie and puppets?”
The result is imperfect and rough around the edges, but there’s something about Tourist Trap that’s hard to shake.
Tourist Trap begins with a bang. Young, attractive couple Eileen (Robin Sherwood) and Woody (Keith McDermott) get a flat tire while driving through the American equivalent of Woop Woop. Ol’ mate Woody decides to go for help and walks to an apparently abandoned servo, where he is set upon by a force that appears to be either a pissed off poltergeist or every Final Destination film rolled into one. Eileen joins her other friends Becky (Tanya Roberts), Jerry (Jon Van Ness) and Molly (Jocelyn Jones), reasoning that they’ll eventually be able to find Woody, and the group heads to local tourist trap, Slausen’s Lost Oasis. After they realise that their own car is cactus, Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors) appears offering to help them. They just need to follow him to his ancient, creepy waxwork museum full of eerie dolls and strangely lifelike mannequins.
What could possibly go wrong?
Look, no one on this green earth would ever describe Tourist Trap as original. If you’ve seen half a dozen horror movies, you’ve almost certainly seen some variation on the theme. And, honestly, for the first half, the film is a bit of a drag. Now don’t get us wrong, Chuck Connors is great as the mysterious Slausen and his sheer size and quietly menacing presence paired with his maddening, friendly smile is genuinely offputting. However, the cast are a bit bland, with the exception of an astonishingly hot Tanya Roberts (seen recently in The Beastmaster). However, when the film finally kicks off, the final third plays out like a hideous funhouse nightmare, replete with creepily moving mannequins, telekinetically powered kills and genuinely striking imagery, particularly in the film’s final shot. It’s not a great film, but it’s certainly memorable, with an unusual location used to great effect and a wonderfully off kilter villain.
This is ordinarily the part where we talk about the gorgeous new print and how much better it looks and whatnot. Unfortunately, and unusually for Umbrella, that’s not the case here. The print for Tourist Trap shows significant signs of age, damage and just general crapasity. Now, to be clear, this blu-ray is the best one currently available, so if you’re a fan of this cult hit, it’s certainly worth grabbing, but those of you hoping for a nice pristine refresh will likely be disappointed by the visual presentation.
The Extras:
Actually, a very solid collection of extras in this creepy wax museum. There’s an audio commentary with director David Schmoeller and another with Full Moon historian Nat Brehmer.
There are three new featurettes, Surviving Slausen: Interview with Actor Jocelyn Jones, which is wonderfully frank and self depreciating; Roadside Nightmare: Interview with Actor Jon Van Ness, which is fun, and Slausen’s Lost Scenes from Script to Screen: Jarret Gahan on Tourist Trap. There’s also a 1999 interview with Schmoeller and an alternate cut of the film, although the differences are minor.
Best in show is Exit Through the Chop Shop: The Making of Tourist Trap, an engaging little piece that contextualises the movie’s place in horror film history and really makes Schmoeller seem like a lovely bloke.
For a relatively obscure film like Tourist Trap, this is an impressive set of special features, particularly when so many of them are new.
Also, for those who purchase the fancy collector’s edition (which is increasingly sold out everywhere, just quietly), you get a 48-page booklet, 8 artcards, a reversible A3 poster and a very flash rigid case designed by Johny ‘Visibly Wasted’ Bekavac.
Verdict:
Look, no one’s going to claim that Tourist Trap is one of the great lost horror movies from the 1970s. It’s tropey, derivative, oddly paced and unevenly acted, but there’s also gold in them thar hills. A genuinely unique aesthetic, a fantastic villain and a bizarre mash-up of slasher flick and supernatural spooker combine with unsettling imagery to create a rough around the edges, but genuinely disquieting, little genre offering.
Stephen King himself, no stranger to the spiciest of genres, opined that Tourist Trap “wields an eerie spooky power”, and it’s hard to argue with that. If you can deal with a print that’s just okay, and some dull moments, Tourist Trap is one creepy attraction that’s well worth a visit. Just don’t touch the dolls.
