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Tourist Trap
Pile it on thick
1979
Director: David Schmoeller
Starring: Chuck Connors, Tanya Roberts, Jocelyn Jones
Yes.
THE SETUP:
Buncha of teens’ car breaks down… you know the drill… but they face off against a maniac who both makes people into mannequins AND has telekinetic powers!
DISCUSSION:
Mainly notable as a rip off of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the films that followed in its wake, in which a bunch of young sex kittens stop/break down by some creepy abandoned house/barn/tourist attraction/etc., this one is notable because not only is the killer a maniac, but he has telekinetic powers! This was a little hard for me to figure out at first—mainly because I thought there is NO WAY a movie [even of this caliber] would pile it on like that. I was like “Is there some kind of earthquake happening? WHY are those knives vibrating by themselves like that? Why are they flying across the room? Is there some electron magnet in the other wall?”
No, it was just a psychotic killer with telekinetic powers.
This is a cruddy little movie that everyone seems to have fond feelings for. I certainly recall it fondly, a friend I mentioned it to said it was his favorite movie ever, and it seems to enjoy a great deal of genial feeling on IMDb. It IS sort of likeable, perhaps precisely because it is so low-rent and utterly preposterous.
A few notables: star Tanya Roberts OBVIOUSLY went on to become one of the replacement Farrah’s on Charlie’s Angels. I believe she was also the beastmaster or some such ludicrousity. The director also directed the Puppet Master films, none of which I’ve seen. The composer, Pino Donaggio, also composed one of my favorite scores to one of my favorite movies, Carrie, as well as other DePalma movies like Dressed to Kill and Blow Out.
The movie overall is a mild-intensity scare fest, with a great deal of extended scenes of torture, the way horror movies had then, one of which stayed with me: in an unusual killing, the maniac plasters over a woman’s entire face [cutting off her air supply], and essentially just waits until she dies. Sounds boring, and it doesn’t pack the visceral punch of, say, a stabbing, but hey, it still worked!
Not the best movie out there, but a cheesy good time with a nasty telekinetic killer that you are more than likely to enjoy.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Sure.
