Tourist Trap
(1979)
In case '90s teen comedies weren't enough to clue you in on it, it's a known fact that road trips aren't as alluring and "wild crazy funski timeskis" as the Russians would say. To better hammer you in the forebrain with this idea, here's Tourist Trap. Our tale follows a quintet of twenty-somethings, boogyin' their hearts through an unnamed stretch of presumably mid-western desert locale. Consisting of two couples and the conventional 5th "tag along" character, our new celluloid pals are Woody, Eileen, Molly, Becky and Jerry (who I can't help but label Greg Brady's lost twin). When his ride catches a flat, Woody is left to go in search of help on foot. If only he'd waited another 5 minutes, he could've been rescued by his compadres in Jerry's military surplus jeep… wish my local Army surplus had shit like that. All they ever have is dead grenades and warheads… well, except for that one non-dead nuke, heh heh. While the buddies converse, Woody finds a seemingly abandoned honky-tonk bar-slash-body shop and invites himself inside. And what does he get for his trespassing, Rod Roddy? "Why Anubis, Woody's in for an unpleasant evening with a gang of cackling mannequins, a closet with a penchant for throw beer bottles and an overly-friendly lead pipe who likes embedding itself into people's torsos! All courtesy of David Schmoeller and the people of Charles Band Productions!". Thank's Rod, that'll do… yeah, I know he's not dead, but don't tell him that, I've got him working for a few decapitated hookers a day and I get the voice of "The Price Is Right", so it's win win! Anyway, like the guy said, Woody gets harassed by some screeching mannequins, pelted with empties and impaled on a piece of levitating plumbing, leaving this world with a series of askewed, contorted facial expressions as his last words. Uhm, okay, so I'm guessing we're dealing with a haunted gas station of some kind? This is already starting to play out like a bad episode of "The New Scooby-Doo Movies". I can hear the Casey Kasem introduction now: "This week Scooby-Doo meets Chuck Connors and Tanya Roberts".
Later, when the other four come looking for Woody (though being a virile young gut in the middle of three chicks probably has Jerry discovering all the Woody he can handle), they experience a little technological fuck-up with Kerry's beloved jeep which, up until this point coincidentally, has never had a single problem before. Yeah, that's a coincidence like I'm a 7' tall monster of super-human size and strength from New Jersey. While Jerry does his duty as the man and tries to figure out what the monkey wrench is in his mechanics, the girls do their duty as the nubile young ladies and go skinny-dipping in a nearby waterhole. What happened to the days when girls just took off all of their clothes and frolicked together whenever they came upon random ponds or lakes or fiords? These days you have to get them all drunk or spike their neon pink alcohol with ecstasy just to get them to flash their rubber boobs for titty compilation videos for sale on late night infomercials on E!. Okay, let's just take a second here to look at these girls and you tell me which one's going to still be inhaling and exhaling the atmosphere by the last reel. Okay, here are the tallies: Eileen and Becky both choose to wear tight tube tops and Daisy Duke shorts, lovin' their bodies and loving even more for an excuse to show them off. They make priests go home at night and cry because they made the WRONG career choice. Eileen's also got no qualms with being the first to drop every stitch of clothing and hop butt-ass nekkid into a strange pool of water, as long it's cold, wet and makes her glisten in the sun. As for Becky, she's Eileen's little toady, the one who does what Eileen does because Eileen's a "stone fox" and Becky wants to be like her. Then there's Molly, whose summer wardrobe consists of a long white sundress that wears past her knees and a big white bonnet to block the sun's harmful radiation. Also, Molly's the last to sheepishly crawl into the murky depths and only takes off her clothes when she realizes it's either that or risk a taunting and wedgie from her partners. Okay, now write your answer for who's coming out of this alive on a slip of paper and I'll count out the ballots at the end of the movie.
This little pool party comes to a quick halt when a very tall old guy with a naive but lovable face makes himself known to the girls, who are trespassing on his property. No biggie though, cuz this guy's cool with wet naked lovelies jumping around and splashing each other... I mean, who's not!? Being the gentle giant he is, Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors) offers the ladies and their male associate some shelter, canned nourishment and mechanical support at his roadside wax museum of "wonders", the Lost Oasis. Slausen also bores them stupid with the tale of his brother Davey, creator of the trap's hyper lifelike wax figures, who left the small time world of roadside sideshows for the glamour and glitz of Hollywood. You might remember his work from such films as Mannequin and, uhm, Mannequin 2?… Sorry kids, creative roadblock just came out of nowhere and kissed my cheek with a sledgehammer. While Slausen and Jerry go off to look at the jeep, the girls stand around talking. If this movie had come out 5 years later and been a true slasher, the girls would've played strip Monopoly or something, but since this is still the relatively non-lesbian heavy days of cinema, they instead pull zany, clothed hijinx. Eileen, despite the semi-stern warnings of Mr. Slausen, makes a bee line to the fancy estate hidden away behind the Oasis in search of a phone, disavowing Slausen's warnings that Davey Crocket lives there in a gay love shack tryst with Daniel Boone or something. Fortunately, there's not a big sweaty animal hide draped man-love session in sight, as Eileen is instead terrorized by a large man in a mannequin masked who barrages her with more bottles, then strangles her with her own ill-gotten neckerchief, using his telekinetic, Carrie-esque mental powers. Looks like Davey didn't go to Hollywood after all. Back at the Oasis, Slausen returns to inform the girls that Jerry took his truck to go to the nearest town for some professional mechanic support. While they wait, Mr. S bores the girls with the tragic tale of his wife, who was claimed by cancer (pick one) and influenced him to create an obscenely realistic wax recreation of her as well. It's about this time that the old coot realizes Eileen's not around, getting a tad miffed when he hears she's "snoopin' around out back", then heads to the house to look for her. When he searches the place, he's upset to find her dead/unconscious in a chair with Davey's mask on her face. Looks like Davey's disappointing his big brother again, which doesn't smell good for one of them… When he returns to the Oasis, Slausen feigns ignorance and proclaims he couldn't find Eileen, but he'll go back out and look for her some more. Hmmm, he's covering up for Davey obviously, so I smell a Three On A Meathook type of family relationship, but I guess that was obvious.
When Becky decides it's her time to show how useless she can be and go out to find Eileen herself, she gets a fate not unlike Joe Spinell in the finale of Maniac the following year… William Lustig, I've got a royalty suit against you for plagiarism my friend. I'll see you on "L.A. Law"!… oh, they canceled that? Ah, that's right, I almost forgot all of Corbin Bernsen's horrible journeys into the realm of b-movies since that happened. Anyway, Davey gathers up his victims (actually just captives, as none of them are dead yet… except for Woody) , including Jerry, and ties them up in his basement. After dressing up in his "night on the town" clothes, complete with cane, top hat and gloves (I'm getting bad ZZ Top flashbacks from those gloves dammitt!), Davey ties down Eileen and covers her face in plaster, promising her two friends an equally slow and painful death, where it isn't the suffocation that kills ya, but the "explosion" of your heart as it overloads from the fear driven adrenaline that overtakes you… nice twist, reminds me of the first suffocation victim I had. It's true too. Right around now is when Jerry finally frees himself from his bonds and attacks his much larger and psychically endowed captor, only to get his heroic ass trounced like a kid and handed to him like so much free tripe. "They don't expect us to swallow this tripe!". With Jerry substantially bound once again, Davey goes on a little tirade about how his jealous brother oppresses him and makes him wear his goofy mask to hide his rugged good looks and keep him from going out and wooin' the ladies. He also makes him stay home because he doesn't trust Davey's control over his own powers. This is all pretty interesting considering you'd think Davey could just knock Slausen on his big Chuck Connors ass with a mental bolt instead of cow-towing to his demands like a big puss. Davey makes a chase for Molly next, but is foiled as Slausen picks her up in his beat up old pick-up (logical choice for picking up other people I guess, they are called "pick-ups" after all) and runs her back to the Oasis. He plans to call the cops, like Molly pleas for him to do, but not until he can subdue Davey first and make sure he's secure when the fuzz do arrive. For some reason, Davey's got a soft spot for radio music, so Mr. S intends to put his radio in the window to lure the big lug to the museum and ensnare him. He seems to be taking his sweet old Chuck Connors time with it though, which throws Molly into a panic, which is only heightened by the untimely arrival of the masked lunatic Davey.
Our heroine tries in vain to give her pursuer some major intestinal surgery the good ol' fashioned way (with Slausen's shotgun), only to learn that Mr. S loads his firearm with blanks… Why? No, it's not because he doesn't want his little brother getting hurt, but because he doesn't want himself to get hurt… that's right, when Molly backhands the big prick with the butt of the gun, it shatters the mask (I could've sworn that thing was rubber, not ceramic) to reveal Mr. Slausen… First time I saw this, I thought I'd drop a nut out of surprise. Even now, after buying the DVD and viewing it numerous times in my bad movie review career, I still think it shows David Schmoeller has big untapped potential in that Full Moon head of his, somebody just needs to hack that coconut open and scoop 'em out! Yes, Chuck Connors is playing a whack-o with telekinetic powers and a multiple personality disorder… call your grandma kids. No time to delay, our madman then knocks the virginal heroine unconscious and drags her into his lair before leaving to make a dinner date with one of his mannequin friends… still one of my favorite of the unknown scenes in the bad movie index, heh heh. Meanwhile, Becky and Jerry break free from their bonds once again (just because he's a lunatic with crazy powers doesn't mean that Slausen can tie a knot worth a shit) and escape into the house, hiding amidst the killer's own mannequins (I haven't seen so many fake people since the premiere of Titanic) before breaking action hero style out of the front windows and escaping to the surrounding property. Becky doesn't make it far though, ending her part in the movie with a nice long knife blade buried in her neck. Diverting his attention back to Molly, Slausen gets over sentimental when she reminds him of his wife and decides to take Molly for a replacement. As for his first wife? That cancer stuff was all a crock, as it turns out Slausen killed her and his brother Davey (who really did exist at one time) when he found out the two had been boning behind his back, and I ain't talking chicken bones. SO, he killed them because he said it was his "legal right"… what law does this guy follow, the law of the Green Inferno?! But, before the bad guy can have his way with the good girl, in busts Jerry to play hero and get his ass kicked once more… and ask where Becky and Eileen are… hey, jackass, Eileen dies already, remember?! You watched her die under a mask of raw plaster! Flip back a few pages in the script for the sake of a smoking monkey!
Then again, this lapse in memory is somewhat explained when Slausen walks over to the shaved ape and dislodges his arms… and head… holy shit, he's an automaton… strike me in the balls and call me Mrs. Mitchell… Yes, long before Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker and Mickey Rooney's big plastic package, Chuck Connors was making crazy robot men… ok, I'm starting to lose track of what the Hell is going on here. In the resulting lunacy that overtakes Slausen in the glory of his insanity, Molly picks her spot like a true horror heroine and plants a painful little axe shot to the old man's neck. Crazy psychic powers aren't worth a shit if you're not paying attention to where all the sharp tools in the room are. Now, with the main obstacle overcame, all that's left is for Molly to pull a Marilyn Burns and let out some of that sweet old "it's all over, but now I'm CrAzY!" laughter, scream and finally drive away from the whole nightmare with Jerry's jeep, packed with mementos of her trip, namely the wax worked bodies of her corpsed-up friends. And the ballots say? 99% says they thought Molly would be the survivor, while 1% said some guy named Hugh Jass would, with a 1% margin of error… despite the mockery of my system, you get the idea. Oh, one last thing, as the credits role, be sure to take note of the horrible work by whoever's in charge of this task, as Connors' name is spelled "Slauson", while the entire time the Lost Oasis's sign reads "Slausen"… guess psychic powers don't mean you can spell your name worth a shit either… With that done, let me talk about why I like this movie more than the majority of it's viewers. First, the masterful execution of our villain… and I don't mean the literal taking of his life. Not only is it great that Schmoeller used two different actors to help portray the two separate personalities of Davey Slausen, but Chuck Connors is great, acting as if he really is two different people! And all this 20 years before before Fight Club! A tip of my talons to Mr. Connors.
On another subject, when reviewing this movie, it's hard not to bring up the striking similarities between Tourist Trap and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which found release 5 years prior. For instance, the all around feel as these wandering young people find their death at the big lunatic's hands, is very similar. Though there are other flicks that copy the TCM formula more blatantly, Tourist Trap manages to get that same grungy, unreformed, depraved '70s tone of secluded dread and hopelessness. Other similarities? Both heroines leave their ordeals in similar manners: off their fucking rockers and completely out of their heads. Oh, they're both blonds too. As for the lead antagonists of both movies? Check out "Davey" in his various wigs and mask and tell me he doesn't remind you of a certain cross dressing psychopath. Give him a chainsaw and viola, instant lawsuit! But, where TCM succeeded, Tourist Trap kinda stumbled. Weak acting from most of the cast (though later excused in the next paragraph) and some cheap looking killer mannequins, along with FX that tended to look fake even for a late '70s Charles Band movie.
As for the future of the cast, if you had a shiny crystal ball (or a pair as is my case) back in 1979, you could've looked into it to foresee Tanya Roberts going on to cult movie fandom as the titular jungle heroine in Sheena, yet another notch in Mr. Bond's bedpost in A View To A Kill, the (human) love interest of Marc Singer in The Beastmaster and Dirk Benedict's (heterosexual) love interest in the Roddy Piper wrestling movie Body Slam before she would settle into the role of Midge, the "TV mother next door you'd love to bang like a screen door with rusty hinges", on "That '70s Show"… at least until she left in 2001. Sure, she'll never have her own "E! True Hollywood Story", but not an entirely horrible career for Miss Roberts. Jon Van Ness (Jerry) went on to do some bit roles as cops in The Hitcher and Alligator II: The Mutation… I've had more impressive moments on the crapper than this guy has in his whole "career". The same goes for Jocelyn Jones (Molly), Robin "Death Wish II" Sherwood (Eileen), Keith McDermott (Woody) and Shailar Coby (Davey). In other words, I'd compare the majority of the Tourist Trap cast's combined careers to a bad day's bout of diarrhea… good thing I'm well stocked with Glade Plug-Ins™… where's Roddy, I need him to cut a promo… Oh well, nevermind. Though the majority of these actors wound up with resumes that would make Robert Z'Dar laugh in mockery, they did their job here and I guess that's all that could be expected of them. It doesn't take a whole lot of talent to play slasher fodder, but then again, if you don't restrain yourself and decide to put some Hamlet-sized effort into your bit part, you can actually make it much worse. So, the next time you're audience to some lack-luster thirty year-olds trying to play high schoolers and purvey little acting "talent", take that into consideration… then you can get back to laughing at them and throwing your empties at the TV.
Want some stupid trivia? Ted Nicolaou, future director of The Dungeonmaster, Ragdoll, the Dragonworld and Subspecies series and a slew of other Charles Band productions, played editor here on Tourist Trap. Actually, Teddy did mucho editing work for other Band flicks too, the likes of Meridian, Trancers II and about 70% of the movies to come out of the good ol' Empire Pictures vault. Oh, and one last note to jot down in your notebook of stupid crap to make you look smart in front of your equally pathetic friends, Nicolaou did some sound work on the original Tobe Hooper masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He and his family are even mentioned on the commentary track for that DVD! Want some more stupid trivia? Before becoming an actor, Chuck Connors was an athlete. No surprise, as this 6 1/2' Brooklyn native played basketball for the Boston Celtics and baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and Montreal Royals before sauntering into the entertainment biz… that's right, despite many peoples' narrow minded opinions, sports is not "entertainment" by any means… except for pro wrestling, hence why it's not a sport, but "sports entertainment"… that and lawn darts… and dwarf tossing… and foosball… all sports of drunken kings and stoned Death Gods the cosmos over. Chuck's big deal was not Tourist Trap, "shockingly" enough, but the ABC western series "The Rifleman". It's a shame really, as with his imposing height and misleadingly pleasant demeanor, Chuck makes a good villain and it would've been nice to see more of him in such roles before he croaked in 1992. So, now you know :::turns on "G.I. Joe" music::: "And knowing is half the battle!". Who knows, maybe whilst he's here in the Underworld I can convince him to play Dark Overlord Dr. Jenning in one of my 17 daily stage play productions of Howard The Duck. I've got Albert Band doing the direction now, so if I can just get Albert Pyun in here to co-direct, I'm sure I'll have something for Roger "The Soultaker" Corman to put out, through which I will rule the world with unrelenting craptitude! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Okay, enough about this movie, it's time for the 9 o'clock show, so I'm outta here like a boner in sweat pants… that's was my backstabbing friend Frank's words, not mine…
DVD X-tras: Though I applaud the clarity of this edition's transfer, the extras aren't exactly something to kill your parents for. There's a pretty weak (though informative, if not repetative) commentary from director Schmoeller; cast flimographies; cheap plugs for Full Moon's Puppet Master toyline; and then my biggest complaint: the trailers section. There's one for Assault Of The Killer Bimbos, Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity, Cannibal Women In The Avacado Jungle Of Death, Peticote Planet, Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Parasite (which sounds like it was narrated by Jeff "Randal Graves" Anderson of Clerks fame) and of course the obligatory one for Tourist Trap... which, shockingly, is possibly the cheesiest one of the whole brain fucking group! Despite the fact that these are all pretty crappy flicks that have little or nothing to do with Tourist Trap (except for that which links us all to one another: Charles Band), the DVD's back cover says that there are, and I quote, "Over 40 Full Moon trailers"... what kind of people is Charles Band hiring to make his DVDs, when we're promised 40+ trailers and receive a mere 7?! I looked all over that damn DVD, looking for Easter Eggs or stupid little submenus I may have missed, and I even stared blankly at the screen for an hour waiting to see if some kind of magical imp with a moustache and spinning bow tie would waltz across the screen and open up a portal of "PURE EVIL!" (thank you Donald Pleasance) from which he pulled the other 33 trailers... not a damn thing. I may not be returning my DVD (it was only $8 after all... after shipping even), but you can bet I'll be sending Mr. Band and friends a 2nd grade math text and a very angry letter from my fire-breathing 3rd grade teacher about it. Chuck, say hello to Mrs. Pissenshitz... hope you've had your shots...
Sequels: Nope
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Scanners
