The slasher sub-genre has been pretty much exhausted - in fact, even by 1979, just one year after the supposed 'first slasher', Halloween (which was released seven years after Bay of Blood), was released; the sub-genre wasn't far from being exhausted; but Tourist Trap represents one of the more original outings. The film follows the same basic formula as most slashers - i.e. madman murders a load of kids, but draws its originality from the fact that madman is shown from the beginning (as opposed to an unseen assailant or a man in a mask) and we actually get some insight into his character. The fact that this killer also has telekinetic abilities, including being able to control the wax dummies that fill his house, adds to the originality. We kick off with a great opening sequence, which sees a young man fall foul of having a flat tire after finding himself in a gas station of terror. The scene is amazingly creepy, as the wax dummies taunt him and things fly from the shelves - and it gives the audience a great insight into what is to come; namely, a very creepy horror film!

The acting credibility is as non-existent as you would expect from a seventies slasher, but to be honest; it's not all that bad. The girls look hot, the boys don't really matter; and Chuck Connors is more than adequately creepy in the role of the psycho. He's not exactly Anthony Perkins; but still, good enough. It's not the acting that's the star of the show, however, and as you might expect - the creepy atmosphere takes that prize. Wax models, as proved by the likes of House of Wax (Vincent Price version...) are very creepy; and the film makes best use of that fact. There are very few things in cinema that can be frightening by simply being there - but wax statues are definitely one of those things. The killer's special ability could easy have gotten in the way of the atmosphere, but the film makes best use of this fact, even, by having various things fly off shelves and it goes well with the rest of the movie. On the whole, this is a very good film. While Tourist Trap might not be absolutely essential viewing; it's well worth seeing and I can recommend it.

One of the oddest, most strikingly eerie and creepy horror films to come out of the 70's, "Tourist Trap" even by the loose, free-wheeling, convention-defying "anything goes" standards of its time rates as a real weirdie. Yet, it's the picture's very strangeness -- a masterfully mounted uncanny atmosphere of pervasively off-kilter supernatural dread which from the get-go registers as powerfully spooky and becomes more increasingly opaque and frightening as the film progresses, offering up ample shocks amid a few scattered moments of surreally lovely dream-like elegance and ending on a bitterly ironic, crushingly nihilistic note with a haunting final image that's hard to shake -- which makes it such a unique and singularly unnerving experience.

Five teenagers traveling through the desolate California desert by car get hopelessly lost. They stumble across "Slausen's Lost Oasis," a seedy, rundown roadside dive that's one part gas station, three parts crummy wax museum, and all parts ratty and foreboding. The joint's lonely, seemingly friendless and harmless owner Slausen (juicily overplayed with infectiously hammy brio by Chuck Conners) turns out to be a deranged psychic killer with lethal telekinetic powers. Slausen brings his freaky assortment of uncomfortably human-like mannequins to life and picks off the kids one by one so he can add them to his ever-growing collection of victims.

Director David ("Puppermaster," "The Arrival") Schmoeller adeptly wrings every last ounce of tension he can squeeze from the pleasingly ambiguous and open-ended script he co-wrote with J. Larry Carroll. (Said script's stubborn refusal to provide some rational excuse for all the bizarre stuff which transpires throughout the movie, often wrongly criticized as one of the film's principal weaknesses, is actually the movie's key strength, giving the picture the scary, anything-and-everything-can-happen, common-logic-be-damned quality of a true nightmare come horrifically to life which never would have been achieved if there was some kind of credible explanation offered for what's happening.) Pino Donaggio's beautifully chilling, understated score, Nicholas von Sternberg's shadowy cinematography, and Robert A. Burns' grubby, cramped production design add immensely to the film's profoundly unsettling mood. Excellent performances are another significant plus, with the pretty, perky Jocelyn Jones (Ellie-Jo Turner in "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase") particularly fine and personable as the most resilient and sympathetic of the endangered teens. Even Tanya Roberts fares well as a luckless lass who has a knife levitated into her head. Offbeat and unusual, "Tourist Trap" is well worth visiting.

A group of young friends stranded at a secluded roadside museum are stalked by the owner's brother, who has the power to control his collection of mannequins.

This film is pure Full Moon, though it actually predated the birth of the company. The use of mannequins fits right into Full Moon's niche (dolls, puppets, et cetera). The production value is low, the filming schedule was short (24 days). And yet, it works. I am not going to say this is one of the greats or a lost classic, but I can safely say it is underrated -- considering how few people have heard of it, it is much better than you might think.

Stephen King praised the picture, saying the film "wields an eerie spooky power, as wax figures begin to move and come to life in a ruined, out-of-the-way tourist resort." The fact King singled out this film says something, though I am not sure what. Many films revolve around a car breaking down and people taking shelter in a dilapidated house or gas station. And yet, he mentioned this one in his book (Danse Macabre). That is probably the best endorsement they could ask for.

While there is very little of note in the movie (as mentioned, it follows the well-worn horror plot and adds little new to that) it is still effective, and somehow works. The characters are not developed, we have no reason to hope that any of them survive, and there is a plot twist or two that really make no sense. Do I know how the mannequins come to life or why Davey had telekinesis powers? No. I just assume the writers blended "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" with "Carrie" and this was what cooked up the oven.

This could probably be called the film where Charles Band hit his stride. While he had worked as a director and producer since 1973 (following in his father's footsteps), this was probably his earliest success (though "Fairy Tales" does have a nice cult following and was the debut of 1980s scream queen Linnea Quigley). How much say he had over this production is not known, but I would boldly say it was the first thing he produced that hit home with the horror crowd.

Although I am fond of bashing Charles Band whenever possible, I have to give him credit for this film. If he did nothing else, he successfully recruited a group of loyal soldiers with which to build Full Moon. Writer-director David Schmoeller had one prior job (as intern on "Capricorn One"), but went on to make Full Moon classics "Puppet Master" and "Crawlspace". Likewise, editor Ted Nicolaou had only been a production assistant on "Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and went on to helm Full Moon's "Subspecies" franchise.

Writer Larry Carroll was early in his career, too. He had previously done editing for "Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "Dracula's Dog" "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Massacre at Central High", making him the most experienced of the new recruits... but we must give Band a little recognition for drawing Carroll over to the dark side before he escaped and became a writer for dozens of cartoon programs including "Dennis the Menace", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Thundercats". (Yet another "Chain Saw" veteran was Robert A. Burns, who designed the mannequins.)

Perhaps most interesting was the music. Not that it was memorable, but it is quite remarkable that Richard Band was not the composer, and his role was filled by the much more celebrated Pino Donaggio (whose fee allegedly was 1/6 of the film's budget). Donaggio might be known to horror fans as a collaborator of Dario Argento and Brian DePalma, but even in his earlier days he was closely allied with horror -- churning out scores for "Carrie", "Piranha" and "Don't Look Now". On the surface, you might think Charlie Band was lucky to get Chuck Connors or Tanya Roberts, but you would be wrong (Roberts had not yet starred in "Charlie's Angels"). David Schmoeller's catch of Donaggio was the big score.