Tourist Trap (1979)

I love old roadside attractions, which we have a few of here in Oregon.  From the Enchanted Forest to the Prehistoric Gardens, from the Wildlife Safari to the Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery, I enjoy just about anything like that.  When the House of Wax film came out in 2005, it reminded me of some of those old attractions I saw in the past.  Flash forward to earlier this year when I found out there was another film that House of Wax resembled more than the original Vincent Price film.  I'm proud to bring you that film today.  From Full Moon founder Charles Band comes: Tourist Trap!

The film starts with a young man, Woody, rolling a tire down the road in search of a service station.  Upon finally finding one, he heads in but finds everything abandoned.  Hearing a noise from the back, Woody goes to investigate.  Coming upon a spartanly decorated room with a figure laying on a cot, he hears the noise, clearly a voice, and goes to check on the figure.  Suddenly, it jerks towards him, showing itself to be a mannequin.  The door slams shut and locks suddenly, but one of the windows opens, so he approaches it, only to be rebuffed when the window slams shut, as well before he gets to it.  He backs away towards another window, only to be surprised by another mannequin crashing into that one, its head falling into the room and starting to laugh at him.  Woody then moves to another door, but this one's booby trapped as well, this time with a hideously ugly, armless, hairless mannequin laughing with a high-pitched voice.  Woody grabs a pipe laying in the room and bashes a hole in the door, reaching through to unlock it when something grabs his arm as the mannequins keep laughing, the furniture starts shaking and a cabinet starts letting fly with a bunch of bottles and a knife.  Finally, another pipe flies into his side, killing him and causing his blood to drain out.

The rest of the film follows Woody's girlfriend and three other friends as they go looking for him and decide to check out an attraction called Slausen's Lost Oasis, with the help of the owner, Mr. Slausen himself.  But is he as helpful as he seems?  The group's in for a twisted evening.

The movie was pretty good, with some interesting special effects for its time.  I still don't know how they had that stuff flying out of the cabinet and into the viewers faces.  The makeup on the film was done by Face Off judge Ve Neill, and it was done really well.  The mansion where a good bit of the action takes place is amazing, too, and all of the mannequins lining the halls and filling the rooms lend it an extremely creepy vibe.

Chuck Conners played Slausen, the museum owner who typically feels like he's both friendly and creepy at the same time.  Best known for westerns like The Rifleman and Branded, this film was one of his attempts to get away from being stereotyped.  He did a really good job here, showing his versatility.

This was definitely a good film.  While not up to par with special effects nowadays, it does still work and provide a nice, creepy vibe to it.  I give it a 4 out of 5.  Next up, we'll take a look at the movie inspired by this film but given another film's name... 2005's House of Wax, costarring Paris Hilton.  Until then, this is Red Hawk signing out!