Tourist Trap (1979) is another entry in the teenagers-fun-afoul-of-rural-folk genre. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn also fall into this category.
Normally, I don’t have much interest in these films. This is probably because I am a type of redneck, bumpkin, yokel, hayseed, hick, whatever, myself. As to what level I aspire, let me put it this way: I have not watched a Green Bay Packers game in a chicken coop, but I have drunk Kool-Aid from a jar and know the struggle of navigating a Wal-Mart bathroom stall with two pounds of Glock on my belt.
Hence, I have a difficult time getting into such films due to them misrepresenting my culture. I imagine it’s like a shark expert watching Jaws. Somethings don’t ring true.
For example, I have never known a cannibal. I also propose buggery is a bigger danger in the city. On the other hand, yes, we might eat roadkill (if it is fresh enough). One of my coworkers regularly picked up dead deer off the side of the road. Free meat, after all…
But…I learned Tourist Trap stars the greatest Bond girl ever, Tanya Roberts, who starred in the greatest Bond film ever, A View to a Kill.
This compels me to get caught up in the whimsy that is Tourist Trap…
Tourist Trap
Tourist Trap wastes no time putting me on the defensive. It is a Charles Band production. I immediately prep my brain for low-budget killer dolls or vampires traipsing around Romania. Visions of direct-to-VHS titles towering into the sky haunt me. Surely, they will tumble over and crush me with their flawed, thrifty ambition.
But, again, this is a Tanya Roberts picture. She would not attach herself to something without merit. I must dig down, hold onto that one thing deep inside that matters most, and endure…
David Schmoeller directs. He helmed the first Puppet Master. (Oh dear.) He and J. Larry Carroll wrote the screenplay. Carroll edited on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. He apparently knows his lane.
Music kicks in, and it is overly wacky. Italian composer Pino Donaggio was in town working on Piranha (1978), which, coincidentally enough, Stark recently reviewed. While Pino was around, Schmoeller got him to do the score for Tourist Trap, as well. Producer Irwin Yablans hated the music, which is an understandable reaction.
Man, Tanya Roberts is going to have a lot of pressure to carry the day on this one…
The Tourist Trap
The movie starts with a man (Keith McDermott) rolling a flat tire along a rural road. He eventually finds a gas station, which appears to be deserted. He enters, encounters laughing mannequins, gets attacked by flying bottles and run through by a pipe.
The scene goes on fifty beats too long. Yet, it creates a sense of mystery. Why are the mannequins laughing? Why are inanimate objects flying? Is this a sidequel to Poltergeist?
Along come the man’s friends in a Volkswagen Thing. They include Jon Van Ness (The Natural), Jocelyn Jones (The Enforcer), Robin Sherwood (Blow Out), and the icon herself, Tanya Roberts. They stop at a natural spring, so, naturally, the ladies must skinny dip.
Relax, perverts. It’s tastefully done. Schmoeller was too bashful to bring up nudity during casting. When the time came to film the scene, he finally asked, and all the actresses refused.
That doesn’t stop Chuck Connors from meandering into the movie and sitting on the bank while the girls soak, however. Good old Chuck Connors — it’s sad to see him slum like this, but he didn’t have as big of a career as expected.
Connors is well known for The Rifleman, certainly, but his filmography is not full of a ton of hits. He basically has Old Yeller, Soylent Green, and Airplane II. In fact, he hoped Tourist Trap would revive his career into a Boris Karloff-type villain.
Connors is the owner of a run-down tourist trap. He doesn’t get many visitors, as the new highway diverted traffic from his location. He offers to give the kids a ride to his place since their VW Thing has mysteriously broken down.
The Accidental Tourist Trap
This is standard stuff, but Tourist Trap surprises somewhat as it wobbles into bizarre territory (I will give a few big spoilers, but it doesn’t matter much, in my opinion).
Tanya Roberts did not get top billing, but that doesn’t stop her from stealing the show. She displays the full gamut of acting, from A to Z — starting with her “alluring” tube top and ending with her “zesty” cut-off jean shorts. Not a single moment existed where I didn’t believe Tanya was the best-looking person in this movie. That’s true talent.
Case in point: have you ever felt that way about Meryl Streep?
Tanya and company arrive at Connors’s backwoods tourist trap. Its main highlight is a disturbing amount of mannikins, including one modeled after Connors’s dead wife. He said he created the mannikin to keep the memory of her alive.
Waste of time, if you ask me. Tanya makes a man forget all other women exist after approximately a nanosecond in her presence. Yet, for some odd reason, Connors takes a shine to Jocelyn Jones’s character instead. Truly, movies are merely a reflection of real life and not fully realistic.
A house is also situated behind the tourist trap. Connors warns the kids not to go there. A man named “Davy” lives in the house. Connors and Van Ness leave the girls to fend for themselves while they go to see if they can fix the VW Thing.
The Pale Tourist Trap
Now that all the characters are split up, Tourist Trap follows the formula of having them get picked off one-by-one by the Davy character.
It quickly becomes obvious that Tourist Trap borrows from Psycho, in that Connors is both the owner of the tourist trap and “Davy.” The movie tries to hide this from the viewer by noting that Davy is played by “Shailar Coby” in the credits. Schmoeller created this alias using the first and middle name of his son.
The subterfuge is unnecessary, as the twist is easily spotted. How easily? My wife, who has about as much interest in the movies I watch as Rock Hudson had in Phyllis Gates, worked on her computer some distance away. About halfway through Tourist Trap, she looked up from her monitor briefly to say…
“That man is also Davy…and Tanya Roberts is the most amazing actress in history…”
Okay, that is not entirely accurate, but it is close enough for the purposes of this review.
Turistas Trap
Despite the weakness of the twist, it manages to generate a bit of magic. Connors turns in a genuinely weird performance as Davy. He lumbers around in a creepy doll mask, speaks in a guttural voice and uses somewhat odd phrasing.
“My brother always makes me wear this stupid mask. Do you know why? Because I’m prettier than him…”
Oh yeah, and his character is also telekinetic. Why is he telekinetic? The ability was added at the last minute by a producer.
Ah, producers. I have ten of them in the room with me right now. My word, their combined IQ must be well over a 100…
By the way, it was reported that cocaine use was so rampant on set of Tourist Trap that it literally fell from the sky. On one occasion, the first assistant director was struck on the head by a bag of cocaine that fell out of the pocket of a lighting rigger.
Nevertheless, with Connors going bizarre, telekinetically-controlled mannequins, Tanya Roberts doing what she does best and a decent stinger ending, Tourist Trap punches a bit above its weight, despite hitting lulls where it noticeably flounders.
Originally, Schmoeller wanted John Carpenter to direct the film. Financial arrangements and scheduling could not be worked out, however. Meanwhile, Jack Palance was the first choice for the villain. Stephen King, who is a big fan of the film, thought that casting might have worked better.
I disagree. Palance would have played it too straight. It is fun watching Connors tap into something no one guessed he possessed.
Fun little trivia sidenotes: Connors also played for the Celtics and was the first NBA player to break a backboard. Furthermore, he is one of only 13 athletes to have played in both the NBA and the MLB.
Also, Lineea Quigley is a mannequin somewhere in Tourist Trap. Personally, I never spotted her.
Tourist Night Trap
Tourist Trap does not reach classic status. It is a bit too muddled for that. Then again, if it was directed by Fulci, or another of his Italian counterparts, it might be viewed as such. The Italians can get away with being muddled. (I firmly believe that if you took random scenes from five Italian horror movies, edited them together and made me watch the result, I would be completely fooled into thinking it was a genuine film.) In fact, throw in a score by Goblin instead of Pino, and you are cooking with gas. An Italian version of Tourist Trap would definitely work.
Tourist Trap shedding 10 minutes would also help. The problem is Tourist Trap is only 90 minutes long to begin with. On the other hand, adding 120 more minutes of Tanya Roberts would also be a solution. Maybe I could consider Tourist Trap a prequel to A View to a Kill and watch that immediately afterward…
For now, we will be grateful to Tanya for gracing us with yet another iconic performance. It somewhat makes up for the fact that we were robbed of having Tanya Roberts in King Kong Lives. Can you imagine how awesome that would have been? Talk about perfect casting. Alas, ’twas not meant to be, cherie…
