SHANNON’S DRIVE-IN: TOURIST TRAP

Shannon watches the horror movie Tourist Trap, a bizarre romp through a not quite abandoned roadside attraction.

A group of friends become stranded at a strange roadside museum and are stalked by a masked madman.

Director: David Schmoeller

Writers: David Schmoeller, J. Larry Carroll

Stars: Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts

One simply does not forget their first viewing of the rural horror movie Tourist Trap. For me, it was the second movie of the night at my very first Dead ‘Till Dawn horror movie marathon way back in 2016 (since then I’ve become a sponsor of the upstate New York drive-in show, helping pick and choose what weird cinema to inflict on horror audiences – Tourist Trap might have ignited something in me to choose this path).

I had never born witness to the existence of this movie before. It feels like something that had been buried on late night TV, long forgotten and overshadowed by more famous road-trip from hell movies (also at my first Dead ‘Till Dawn, it played right after the granddaddy of horror road-trip movies, the 1974 classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, fitting because there are some crew members connected to both movies – more on that later).

Tourist Trap instantly became one of my favorite horror movies that night.

All you have to do is watch the first ten minutes of the movie to decide if it’s for you or not. Once those evil-looking mannequins start laughing at you, spewing the mania only haunted objects can lob, you’ll be so weirded out that the decision of whether to stay or go forward on the path of this Full Moon Features flick becomes obvious.

A group of friends becomes stranded at Slausen’s Lost Oasis, the titular tourist trap, a place full of uncanny mannequins and spooky puppets . When the girls go skinny-dipping, the owner, Mr. Slausen, pops up out of nowhere to introduce himself while leering at them, just being a creepy gun-toting redneck out in the middle of nowhere. As day turns into night, the atmosphere grows more eerie as we follow the characters and their growing anxiety.

There’s also Davey, Slausen’s brother, who’s on the loose, running around and terrorizing the girls. He’s wearing weird masks, a low-rent Leatherface stalking his victims, and is somehow telekinetic. It’s never explained why there’s a telekinetic element to this movie, it’s just there to be weird, but also this feature makes Tourist Trap stands out.

Amongst the cackles of the mannequins and Davey running rampant, our heroes don’t provide much in the way of personality, but are just there to be pestered by Slausen and Davey. The scenes against a soundtrack of broken mechanical whimsy that takes any kind of terror out of what you’re watching. Composer Pino Domaggio was in town working on the soundtrack for Joe Dante’s Piranha and got himself a gig on Tourist Trap allbecause both he and director David Schmoeller could speak Spanish, leading to Schmoeller convincing Domaggio to join the team.

Long-time actor Chuck Connors plays Slausen as both awkward and creepy, making you uncomfortable being stranded way the hell out there with him. Tanya Roberts, who plays Becky, was a Bond girl in 1985’s A View to a Kill. Director David Schmoeller later went on to direct more scary puppets in the 1989 classic Puppet Master. He co-wrote the screenplay with J. Larry Carroll, who had a hand in editing rural road-trip from hell movies The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Production designer Robert A. Burns was also involved with the art direction for both those movies.

Overall, Tourist Trap is a great watch for the summer season. It holds its own amongst all the other rural horror movies by being insanely weird, revealing in its own brand of Full Moon nonsense. I’ll never forget the first time watching it, saying out loud, “What the hell am I watching?” Upon seeing it multiple times over the years, it still feels fresh and insane, and I always repeat that same question with great love and appreciation.

Shannon Grant is a writer, performer, adventurer, and horned cryptid living in the wilds of upstate New York. Her work can be found in many small press anthologies such as A Guide to Useless Sidekicks, Catskill Chaos, and The Lizzie Borden House Anthology. She is currently at work on a vampire novella. When not writing, she can be found haunting drive-in movie theaters, karaoke bars, and looking for ghosts in the woods.

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