Reaction & Review | Tourist Trap

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be taking a look at a horror movie from 1979. That movie is "Tourist Trap." I didn't think that I would be covering two horror movies in a row, but here we are.

Now, there's a couple of reasons why I wanted to watch this movie. The first reason being is that this movie was made by a studio known as Charles Band Productions. Which is the same studio that has put out stuff like the "Puppet Master" series, "Ghoulies", and many other horror films that are too many to count. Speaking of which, I also know that this movie was re-released on Blu-Ray in 2014 by Full Moon Features. And while it's not technically made by Full Moon, I'm still going to count it on a technicality that they did re-release the movie. Now, I have stated before that I wanted to see other films from Full Moon that wasn't a "Puppet Master" movie. So far, I haven't found one that I liked, but it's still early and, hopefully, "Tourist Trap" will change that.

And the second reason that I wanted to see this movie is because of one cast member. That one cast member is an actor that goes by the name of Chuck Connors. Some of you might not know who Chuck Connors is. And in case you don't, he was the star of an old Western TV show from the late 50's to early 60's known as "The Rifleman". Which I really enjoyed watching, and still do today. And I'm really curious to see how Chuck Connors will transition from a Western star to a horror movie like this.

I couldn't tell you much about the plot for this movie, other than it has got something to do with mannequins that have supernatural powers. That's pretty much it. I don't know anything else about the movie, other than what I picked up. I don't know if this movie will be any good, but I am certainly hoping for it to be decent. And the only way I'm going to find out if this movie will be any good or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Tourist Trap".

6 minutes later

So, hold on a second here. This guy is trapped inside a room of this bar. And rather than trying to go through the broken window that was shattered just moments ago, he instead is trying to break the doorknob off with a crowbar. Mind you, there are two windows. He could easily break the other one with the crowbar-oh, and now he dropped it. Sure, dude, that makes a ton of sense. Anyway, he could just break the other window and climb out of it while trying to defend himself at the same time. I know it's still early, guys, but, so far, I have yet to see any use of common sense being showcased here. I genuinely hope that the rest of the movie is going to be better, but right now, we're off to a bit of a bad start, guys.

11 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question that I might regret asking. How does this chick know Mr. Slausen's name? As I recalled, Mr. Slausen never introduced himself to our female characters when he showed up a few minutes ago. I understand that I might be asking a trivial question here, but I am really curious, guys. How did she know who he was?

20 minutes later

That was quite possibly the worst jump scare I have seen in this entire movie. And I can tell you that it was the worst because the movie telegraphed it about 10 seconds beforehand. It's a really bad sign when a movie has to telegraph a jump scare of all things, and it's making this movie kinda shit.

8 minutes later

You know, guys, I'd be willing take this scene seriously if the acting wasn't complete shit. Because we have this weirdo covering wax all over this girl's face, except the girl doesn't know whether she's suppose to be crying or laughing, and it's taking all the suspense this movie had and making it kinda stupid.

19 minutes later

Well, guys, I can confirm one thing so far. Chuck Connors is the only actor in this movie who's putting in any kind of effort. Unfortunately, that's one of the very few positives that I've pulled from this movie so far. But hey, I'll have plenty of time to talk about all of that once this movie is done.

The Review

God, that ending sucked. Well, guys, that was "Tourist Trap". Thank god, it's over. Let me shut the movie off...OK. Where the hell to even start? Um...you know, I was kinda hoping for this movie to be decent and...it wasn't. Anyway, let's talk about this movie, shall we?

I want to start with something that I never thought I would talk about in these reviews, but I want to start with the rating that this movie got. Now, when you think of a horror movie, most of the time, you would expect them to have an R rating. Or sometimes, certain horror movies would get a PG-13 rating. But this movie has a PG rating. Which is rather unusual for a horror movie. Now that might be because the PG-13 rating didn't exist until somewhere in the mid 80's. And since this movie came out in 1979, it wouldn't be a thing for another few years until that rating became a part of the MPAA ratings system. But to be honest, if this movie came out today, there is no way in hell this movie would get a PG rating. At best, I would say this movie would get a PG-13 rating. And that's being generous, mind you.

Now beyond the questionable rating, let's talk about the writing, shall we? Writing in this movie is...incredibly weak. I will say that the story had some level of promise. And, in the hands of a good writer, we would've gotten an amazing story. But, you see, the story is brought down by our characters. Almost every character in this movie is shallow and lifeless. And I talked about this in my previous review of "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", where it's kind of a standard to have some shallow characters in horror movies. But the difference here is that "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" had some really sharp writing to where you didn't really need to worry about shallow characters having some sort of depth. "Tourist Trap" has almost nothing like that. The story here, as I said, could've been amazing, had we gotten someone who knew how to write interesting characters and a better script. But, unfortunately, we got saddled with this, ultimately, dull story. The only character who has any kind of depth is Mr. Slausen, who is Chuck Connors character in this movie. Because he first appears when our character's car breaks down and brings them over to his place to get his tools to help repair their car. And later on, you get to hear from him about how his wife died, how he and his wife wanted to build a resort, and how his brother built these mannequins so good, that they hired him away to the city at a wax museum. And you do kinda feel for him, for like, the first half of the movie. Now this is more attributed to acting, more so than writing. But I'll get to acting in a little bit. But anyway, Mr. Slausen is the only character in this movie who has any kind of saving grace. Granted, it's not much of a saving grace, but it's still there.

I want to touch upon telegraphing. Because this movie has some of the worst telegraphing I have seen in a movie in a long time. And it comes in two factors. The first one is jump scares. Now, I totally understand that a horror movie usually tends to have some sort of jump scares factored into their movies, but these jump scares are just lazily done. Because, first of all, all the jump scares in this movie are not scary in the slightest. The worst of it comes from what I mentioned earlier in the reaction portion of this review. So, we have Tanya Roberts character in this movie, Becky, as she goes to investigate the house of Mr. Slausen's brother to try and find Eileen, because, even though she was told to stay away from the house by Mr. Slausen, she goes to investigate it anyway. Which, I guess is sort of the norm when it comes to the horror movie trope, but it's still stupid as hell. So, we have Becky investigating the house. She goes into one room, and sees Eileen sitting on a chair. Mind you, she sees her from the back. And as she calls out her name as she approaches her, Eileen turns around to reveal that she's been turned into a mannequin, and starts raising her arms up and makes some sort of noise, which scares Becky, as she runs off. And that jump scare was so poorly done because the filmmakers telegraphed it about 10 seconds beforehand. And the worst part about all of this is that, when Becky does enter this room and calls out to Eileen, we actually get a front shot of Eileen turned into a mannequin before the jump scare could take place. And when you do something like that, it takes ALL of the suspension out of that entire scene and makes your jump scare completely worthless. Now granted, this movie doesn't rely on a ton of jump scares, but all of them are not scary and they come off as incredibly pointless, especially with how badly you telegraph those jump scares.

Now, the other factor that I want to mention, and this is going to tie into writing, is that there is a plot twist that happens around a little after the halfway mark of the movie. And it involves our killer, who turns his victims into mannequins. And the most notable features about him is that he wears a doll mask, and has some dark, gravely voice. I'm not going to give away the twist, on the off chance you want to watch this movie, but the twist is so blatant and obvious, because he gives out some bit of dialogue that gives away who our mannequin killer is. And it's worse, because they telegraph this plot twist about 10 minutes before we learn the identity of the mannequin killer. And if you don't figure out who it is by the time they reveal his identity, then I'm sorry, but you're about as stupid as the person who wrote the script for this movie, and thought that this was a good way to build tension.

Now, as for our other characters, outside of them being shallow and lifeless, most of them are stupid as hell. One of them involves our very first victim, who gets killed at the very beginning of the movie. So, he brings his flat tire to this bar, because he was trying to find help. And as he goes into the back of the bar and discovers the mannequin in the bed, that's when almost everything in the room starts to shake, the windows are shut tight, and the victim is trapped, so you would assume he has nowhere to go. Except, there are two windows. One of them was broken by a mannequin, who's head falls off. And there's a crowbar on the ground. Instead of using the crowbar to break his way through the other shut tight window, he instead tries to use it to break the doorknob off the door, in hopes the door will be open by then. He bangs on it multiple times, but the doorknob is still intact. OK, so why didn't he just, as I mentioned, use the crowbar on the shut tight window to break it open and crawl out there? He could've gotten out within a few seconds. Or, he could've used it on the mannequin with the broken head that was in the way. He could;ve knock it down and crawl through the window there. But no. Instead, he drops the fucking crowbar and is holding on to the doorknob for dear life as he's screaming for help. And we see a ton of objects fly towards him while he's still holding onto the doorknob, screaming. And once all of the objects are thrown at him, the one that's left is the crowbar. And, what do you know, the crowbar ends up stabbing him in the back and he dies. Nothing he did in that scene made any sense, and I would've expected him to use some kind of common sense. But I guess that would be asking for too much.

The second instance of stupidity comes when two of our heroes are tied up, while another character, who only appears in this one scene, is strapped to a table. Now I hinted at this scene earlier, during the reaction portion of the review, where she's getting her face covered in wax. Now, I'm not talking about whether or not the victim was suppose to be crying or laughing. I'll get to that in a moment. No, the stupidity comes during when the mannequin killer is putting wax on the victim's face. We see one of our very few male characters in this movie, as his wrists are tied to a wooden pole. And we see him attempting to chew the rope from his wrists with his teeth. As the scene is going on, you would assume that he would get his wrists free and save the female victim from getting her face entirely covered in wax. But no, she dies, and he doesn't step in until AFTER our mannequin killer has finished off our victim. Why would you build any kind of tension, only for it to end up with the victim dying? Again, this is just another sign of the writer not understanding how to build proper tension if it was going to go nowhere.

So, as you can tell, the writing here is terrible. I said at the start of this review that the writing was incredibly weak. But after getting a chance to really talk about it, the writing here is incredibly stupid and kinda insults your intelligence, to be honest. Now, what about the acting? Well, as I mentioned before, the only actor in this movie that turns in any kind of showing is Chuck Connors. And I was curious to see how exactly would Chuck Connors transition from a Western star into a horror movie like this. And you know what? He does it really, really well. Now granted, even though he wasn't given much to work with, he was able to make his dialogue work. And it comes off as incredibly believable. As for everyone else, nobody here turned in a decent showing. The worst of this terrible acting comes from Tanya Roberts. So, I just talked about the scene involving the victim getting her face covered in wax, and how she didn't know whether she was suppose to be crying or laughing. As all of this is happening, we get a couple of shots of Tanya Roberts trying to look horrified as to what's happening to our victim. The problem here, though, is that at the end of both shots, Tanya Roberts look as though as she were smiling. What the fuck is she smiling for? She's witnessing someone about to be killed and she ends up smiling? That, guys, is what ruined the entire scene for me. I could maybe overlook the actress that didn't know whether to cry or laugh, but those shots of Tanya Roberts looking as though she were smiling killed any tension that scene might've had. So yeah, guys, acting here is mostly terrible save for Chuck Connors.

There really isn't a ton of special effects in this movie, outside of some practical effects. And the practical effects are...OK, at best. Because we have plenty of shots involving the mannequins mouths moving up and down, and that looked kinda average. I will say, though, that most of these mannequins are designed really well, and I do like the attention to detail on a few certain ones. The best example I can think of is during when Mr. Slausen brings our heroes to his home, and shows one off of these mannequins that his brother built. Such as one of them looking like a World War II soldier, one of them that looks like an Indian, and another one that was dressed like a cowboy. And the animatronics on them are really well done, especially with how they function. But everything else looks kinda cheap. And I totally understand that this movie was probably filmed with a low budget, but some of it could've been done better. Especially when you consider that the special effects were done by Charles Band himself.

Camerawork is pretty good. The lighting, in most shots, looks pretty good. Though there are some occasions where some scenes are filmed in the dark, but it's not enough to make it where you can't see what's going on. So, in that regard, I can say that the lighting is mostly well lit. Sound-mix and score are mostly good, except for some scenes that have music that sounds really loud. To a point where, I had to turn down the volume because the music was that loud. And it really could've been mixed better had the music not been so blaringly loud. But outside of the music being mixed a little poorly, the sound-mix was mostly mixed well. And the music is also pretty good, too. It's nothing amazing, but it's certainly used well enough, when needed to be properly used.

So, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Tourist Trap"? No. This movie could've been amazing had we gotten a better script and characters that weren't incredibly stupid. And I mean stupid, by the standards of horror movies. But instead, we got stuck with this. I could maybe recommend it if you want to invite friends over for a bad movie night and riff on it. Or if you're a fan of Full Moon and you like their movies, then there's a slim chance that you might like it. But, as for me, I'm probably not going to watch this movie again. And that's a shame, because I really want to find a good movie from Full Moon. Granted, I know that this film was only, technically, published by Full Moon, but still, until I find a good movie from them that doesn't have "Puppet Master" in it's title, I'm just gonna have to stick with those first 5 "Puppet Master" movies, along with "Retro Puppet Master", and "Puppet Master 9: Axis of Evil".

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.