the audience applauded

It is a performances centric movie

Boring

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

After many of my friends recommended this to me, I figured I had to check it out, so I bought the (relatively) new Blu-Ray release, settled in for the night, and checked it out. To my surprise, Tourist Trap lives up to its hype and then some. One can see why it never became a huge mainstream success like, say, Jaws or Halloween, but it has all the makings of a cult classic.The set up is nothing spectacular. In fact, it owes a lot of its plot to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and House of Wax (even more surprising, the 2005 remake of that film is more of a remake of Tourist Trap than the '53 film). What makes this one stand out from the then growing slasher genre is a sense of the surreal, the dreamlike, and the nightmarish. Attractive teens aren't just killed one by one by some creep in a mask. There's a lot more at play here than your average stalk 'n slash flick. By the last 20 minutes of the film, everything seems like a bizarre fever dream and hope is a thing of the past.A lot should be said for Jocelyn Jones' wonderful performance - going from kind wallflower to woman in the process of a nervous breakdown. Chuck Connors is also terrific as Mr. Slausen, the owner of the titular Tourist Trap whose motives seem to always be up in the air. And yes, that's future Charlie's Angel, Tanya Roberts, as one of the other victims.For those looking for something creepy and different, Tourist Trap delivers in spades. Perfect for a Halloween party or even for a kid's first horror film (it is rated PG after all).

When his car has a flat tire, Woody (Keith McDermott) seeks a gas station in an empty road. He finds a deserted place and is attacked by mannequins in a room and dies. Meanwhile his girlfriend Eileen (Robin Sherwood) waits for him in the car. However their friends Jerry (Jon Van Ness), Molly (Jocelyn Jones) and Becky (Tanya Roberts) arrive and they decide to look for him. They find a paradisiacal waterfall but their car breaks down. While Jerry tries to fix the car, the girls bath in a lake. Out of the blue, an old man arrives and he introduces himself as Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors), who owns the place. He brings Molly, Becky and Eileen to his house and tells that he would help Jerry. They find a waxwork museum with armed cowboys. Eileen decides to leave the house to find a telephone, but she is attacked and strangled by a masked stranger. Who might be the killer and how will he girls flee from the spot?"Tourist Trap" is an unoriginal slasher with a mad serial-killer that seems to be a magician. The plot is totally predictable and how the insane killer controls the mannequins is not explained. In addition, the boring music score by the Italian musician Pino Donaggio is annoying. My vote is six.Title (Beail): "Armadilha para Turistas" ("Tourist Trap")

I heard some praise for this "horror" movie for its visuals, setting, and mystery. Wanting a good scare I decided to watch it. The presentation does fulfill the expectations I had. This movie has the motifs of claustrophobic uneasiness in a sparse population, unnerving helplessness, and ambiguities regarding the tourist site host. It is not original but that is not a bad thing. The procedure of murder is similar to "House of Wax," the setting is in secluded place like many dark house horror movies, and it has the gritty aura of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Many wonder why this movie is so underrated and in my opinion it is underrated because despite all of its horror movie elements it was really boring. I did not get scared and it ended up being a search game for the qualities I expected from a horror movie. It fulfilled the expectations of why it should be scary but was ironically not scary. I am not trying to prove that I am super brave and hard to phase. This was my honest reaction from what many consider a "underrated horror movie." I guess it is easy for me to pinpoint many key details and elements that comprise good horror movies. Strangely it is not those qualities that make anyone scared. It depends on how much anyone is willing to believe anything is scary that makes true horror. I can say for myself I watched the movie with the wrong attitude from the start and it will now never be scary for me.

Ever notice how often the earliest flicks by horror directors, before they go on to bigger and higher budget-productions, are usually the ones that are the coolest and creepiest? Having budget restraints forces a talented director to utilize everything they've got to bring us a story that "wows" us, without taking the easy ways out! Four decades later and TOURIST TRAP is still effective, still creepy, still able to make store mannequins scare the @#$! out of you! Chuck Conners is the ghoulish remnant of his shuttered roadside "tourist trap" - a wax museum/gift shop - along with his plethora of mannequins. Five unlucky young adults have the unfortunate experience of having their car break down in the middle of nowhere and getting a personal tour of this closed down roadside attraction. Gritty and unpolished, but never succumbing to over-the-top shenanigans that plague so many horror movies, Tourist Trap slow burns with a nightmarish tone, and a very effectively eerie score courtesy of Pino Donaggio.Many mannequin horrors have come since, but none are as effective as this low-budget classic from 1979. A must for Horror Fans who prefer the macabre and disturbing over the shocking and gory.