Tourist Trap (1979)

Directed by David Schmoeller. Starring Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Tanya Roberts, Robin Sherwood, Dawn Jeffory-Nelson, Shailar Coby, Keith McDermott. [PG]

Peculiar slasher produced during the gap between Halloween providing the blueprint and Friday the 13th turning it into tired, bloody formula. Setup is banal—young folks get stranded at Connors’ creepy, mannequin-filled roadside tourist trap, then start dropping like flies—but the non-clichéd ingredients give it a kick, including repeated telekinetic interference that’s never explained! Freely borrows from a host of horror staples like House of Wax, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, and so on. Gorehounds may be disappointed by so little spilled blood (a PG-rated slasher seems as much an oxymoron as an honest politician), but the “living” mannequin stuff can be downright freaky and/or funny as logic seizes to apply. Connors’ devilish charisma compensates for the cardboard victims/heroes, but a surfeit of overlong and slowly-paced scenes makes this one only a bonkers treat in fits and starts. Appropriately eerie and bizarre music score by frequent Brian De Palma collaborator, Pino Donaggio. B-movie “Scream Queen” Linnea Quigley reportedly plays one of the mannequins.

58/100