{"id":8915,"date":"2024-11-25T15:13:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8915"},"modified":"2024-11-25T15:13:47","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:13:47","slug":"tourist-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/25\/tourist-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourist Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tourist Trap <\/strong>(1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Compass International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 85 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Schmoeller and J. Larry Carroll\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Pino Donaggio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nicholas von Sternberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 16, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Dawn Jeffory, Keith McDermott, Shailar Coby.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: * \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The horror movie Tourist Trap<\/strong> is a boring mess. If only I could leave my review at that. Well, I could but that would be as lazy as David Schmoeller\u2019s (Crawlspace) directing in this moronic mishmash of ideas from House of Wax, Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Carrie. There are also creepy mannequins. It might have worked if the narrative wasn\u2019t such a mess and it wasn\u2019t so dull and the acting wasn\u2019t so terrible and it was actually scary but it is, it is, it is and it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know that Tourist Trap<\/strong> has its fans who praise its weirdness and creepy atmosphere and whatever else. To me, it\u2019s a collection of clich\u00e9s and poorly lit scenes where you can barely make out what\u2019s going on. Its PG rating prevents it from showing graphic violence and nudity thus depriving it of two essential components of slasher flicks. It says very little about the actors that the mannequins turn in livelier performances. Well, all but one. The movie\u2019s sole saving race is a wonderfully weird campy performance from Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) as the creepy guy terrorizing the one-dimensional characters. Other than that, Tourist Trap<\/strong> has nothing to offer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A group of young travelers find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere after both vehicles they\u2019re riding in break down. One of them, Woody (McDermott, Without a Trace), has already disappeared. In the opening scene, he walks to an abandoned gas station where he\u2019s attacked and killed by the aforementioned creepy mannequin. The remaining youngsters- Molly (Jones, The Enforcer), Jerry (Ness, Ruckus), Eileen (Sherwood, Death Wish II) and Becky (Roberts, Charlie\u2019s Angels)- try to make the best of things. Jerry tries to fix the car while the girls go skinny-dipping in a nearby lake. That\u2019s when they encounter Connors\u2019 character Mr. Slausen, the owner of a cheesy roadside wax museum that fell victim to a highway that totally obliterated the tourist trade in the area. He offers to help them fix the car, but they have to come with him to his house to get his tools. That\u2019s when the nightmare begins, theirs and ours.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m not quite sure how to go about describing what proceeds in Tourist Trap<\/strong>. It\u2019s a bunch of crazy stuff involving mannequins that appear to be alive, a masked killer who might be Slausen\u2019s disturbed brother and telekinesis. It\u2019s confusing enough that Schmoeller introduces a character, a captive named Tina (Jeffory of The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!), for the sole purpose of explaining to the others (and to us) what\u2019s going on. It doesn\u2019t help, not at all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, the only good thing about Tourist Trap<\/strong> is Connors, one of many older Hollywood actors who took roles in dreck like this to show studio execs they\u2019re still alive and willing to work. Although outwardly friendly, this guy\u2019s clearly a crackpot of the Norman Bates variety. He\u2019s a deadly spider luring victims into his web of murder, insanity and plaster. Again, this might have been fun if done with a hint of style or coherence. You can see it in scenes of Slausen playing with dolls or dancing with a mannequin that resembles his dead wife. That it \u201cresembles\u201d his dead wife is a dead giveaway of a major plot point. Schmoeller doesn\u2019t even try to inject a single element of surprise into the dull affair that goes on way too long even at 85 minutes. Scenes, like Woody\u2019s demise, go on longer than necessary. There are long, uneventful stretches made worse by poor lighting. Even the score by the usually reliable Pino Donaggio, a frequent Brian De Palma collaborator whose (better) work can be heard in Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out and Body Double, isn\u2019t up to par. The opening theme music is more suited to a goofy comedy than a horror show.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Schmoeller took the director\u2019s seat after John Carpenter, fresh from the success of Halloween, passed on the project. One can only imagine what he would have done with Tourist Trap<\/strong>. It definitely would have been a better movie. It actually has the makings of a decent scary movie, but Schmoeller botches it along with the rest of the cast (except Connors, of course) and crew. The only other point of interest here is Tanya Roberts in an early role. Sure, she\u2019s easy on the eyes, but she can\u2019t act. She\u2019s terrible in Tourist Trap<\/strong>, but no worse than any of her co-stars.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion. I\u2019ve spoken with people who think Tourist Trap<\/strong> is great. More power to them. Film, like all art, is subjective. It\u2019s a matter of trash vs. treasure. You can guess where I think Tourist Trap<\/strong> belongs. Don\u2019t fall into this trap, just keep passing by.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tourist Trap (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Compass International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 85 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: David Schmoeller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Schmoeller and J. Larry Carroll\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Pino Donaggio\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nicholas von Sternberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 16, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Dawn Jeffory, Keith McDermott, Shailar Coby.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Tourist-Trap-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9164,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8915\/revisions\/9164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}