Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie Review

Should you get suckered in?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 31, 2015

Note: This release is missing several minutes of footage. See the official thread as linked at the "Forum" tab above for more information.

Some people are afraid of spiders, others have an innate fear of clowns, and maybe even a few lose sleep at night over mannequins and wax figures. It's the latter two that are at the center of Tourist Trap, a lower budget 1979 fright flick that takes its cues from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and House of Wax (the original Vincent Price classic, of course, not the shoddy remake released a couple of decades after Tourist Trap) and follows a handful of stranded teens fighting for their lives against mystery figures obsessed with mannequins and wax sculptures that aren't exactly as they appear. It's straightforward and even a bit hackneyed, serving up a couple of commendable twists but is mostly a linear, nondescript sort of movie that's less a bonafide classic and more an example of the tamer, but nevertheless somewhat eerie, side of Horror.

Horror movie fodder.

Several teens become stranded on a hot, sticky day when their car blows a tire and they find the spare uselessly flat. One of them (Keith McDermott) rolls it to a nearby gas station where, rather than get his tire inflated, he gets himself impaled when he's attacked by mannequins. The remaining group finally moves forward without him and stops to take a dip in a nearby lake. They're approached by a seemingly kindly old man named Slausen (Chuck Connors) who offers them a ride back to his place for help. There, they find an old roadside stop filled with mechanical wax figures that they will soon learn are much more than a simple tourist trap destination curiosity.

Tourist Trap is one of those movies that, despite a couple of surprises, is largely transparent and relies more on mood and the creepy idea behind it more so than raw terror and gut-churning fear to work. It's a rudimentary Horror picture by all means of analysis, borrowing old ideas but mixing them up well enough to create its own, albeit somewhat flimsy, identity. The characters -- the teenagers, mostly -- are largely interchangeable and unimportant beyond number, and here their clothes and faces prove more significant to the story than any characteristics they bring (or don't bring, as the case may be) to the table. It's a slow-developing and deliberate film on top of that, working to build an atmosphere while it takes its time going anywhere of significance. The tradeoff is a final act that's suitably spooky, but one can only wonder if a more tightly edited middle stretch might have made the movie a bit more palatable at the end of the day.

The movie proves largely tame by all modern standards, sacrificing blood and guts in favor of a more choking (literally, at times) atmosphere and the relative novelty of the mannequins and wax figures serving as secondary protagonists to a greater force controlling them and manipulating the situation. The result is an unnerving spectacle of the unusual, essentially eliciting a very tangible fear of the artificial finding life, one way or another, and worse, out to get innocent people for a darker purpose. The mechanics of it all work well (though it's not unusual to catch a glimpse of the strings manipulating the movements) and the cast interacts strongly with these nemeses, partly, it seems, because they actually have something tangible against which they can play -- even if it's not alive -- and, of course, because it certainly must have been at least the slightest bit creepy even on set, immersed in a moldy, dank, out-of-the-way run-down and dark locale while oftentimes surrounded by something that must have seemed straight out of a bad dream.

Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tourist Trap's 1080p transfer is by no means ideal. It's serviceable at best and littered with issues. The image opens soft but tightens up a bit after the fact, revealing a decent baseline level of detail and crispness but hardly to the level of even a moderately good and sharp catalogue presentation. Grain and noise alike flutter about. Colors are faded and drab, evident even in some of the darker interiors and nighttime exteriors. Blacks don't particularly impress, revealing a bit of crush, while flesh tones at least appear adequate and in-line with the larger color scheme. The image features quite a bit of background blockiness, flicker, and some spots and speckles, the latter of which increase considerably in volume near the end.

Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tourist Trap features a lackluster Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. It's cramped up the middle with precious little width and virtually no depth. Music is tight and stuffed up the middle, producing only cursory drift to the sides. Clarity is likewise lacking, with muffled notes and chunky supportive sound effects. Crashes, screams, gunshots, and other action elements are clunky and lacking aggression or realism. Atmospheric effects are also muddy and mushed together in the middle. Dialogue is at least suitably clear and intelligible with natural center placement.

Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Tourist Trap contains a commentary, a making-of, and a photo gallery.

• Audio Commentary: Writer/Director David Schmoeller offers a detailed, evenly spoken commentary that covers the film in some detail, beginning with a discussion of the score and moving on to cover crafting visual effects, cast and performances, crew contributions, building the mannequins, and much more. Fans should enjoy the time spent with the director.
• Documentary (1080p, 24:35): A look Writer/Director David Schmoeller's career, project origins, casting, crew work including mannequin construction and set design, life on the set, making several key scenes, the number of ways one can interpret the ending, post-production work, and the movie's legacy of terror.
• Still Gallery (1080p, 3:35): Includes film-related documents, images from the set, promotional materials, and home video box covers.
• Full Moon Trailers (1080p): Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, Unlucky Charms, Ooga Booga, Puppet Master, Puppet Master 2, Puppet Master 3, and Grindhouse Promo.

Tourist Trap Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tourist Trap isn't a classic work of cinema, but it's a solidly entertaining and, much more importantly, suitably eerie look into a macabre world of animated lifeless humanoids and the puppet master(s) behind them. The film is a little slow and in many ways a bit to reminiscent of some of the other, better films that it copies, but it stands tall enough on its own feet and proves well worth a watch, warts and all. Full Moon's Blu-ray release of Tourist Trap features middling video, bland audio, and a few supplements. Worth picking up on the cheap.