Tourist Trap (originally released in the UK as Nightmare of Terror) is a 1979 American supernatural slasher film directed by David Schmoeller and starring Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, and Tanya Roberts. The film follows a group of young people who stumble upon a roadside museum run by a lonely eccentric, where an unknown killer with psychokinetic powers begins to murder them. Schmoeller co-wrote the script with J. Larry Carroll who served as producer for the film alongside famous producer/director Charles Band.
Plot
Eileen and her boyfriend Woody are driving through the California desert. When their car gets a flat tire, Woody goes to find a gas station. Their friends Becky, Jerry, and Molly are traveling in a different vehicle. They reach Eileen and all drive off to collect Woody.
Woody has found a gas station but it appears deserted. He enters the back room but becomes trapped by an unseen force. Various mannequins appear and cackle as objects fly off shelves at him until a metal pipe impales and kills him.
The others find Slausen's Lost Oasis, a tourist trap, but their vehicle mysteriously breaks down. Jerry tries to fix the car and the girls go skinny dipping. Mr. Slausen—the owner of the tourist trap—appears, holding a shotgun. He seems embittered by the decline of his tourist trap since the construction of a new freeway. The girls apologize for trespassing.
Slausen offers to help Jerry with the car, but insists the group go to his home with him to get his tools. There, they see the tourist trap: animated waxwork figures. Eileen is curious about a nearby house, but Slausen insists that the women should stay inside the museum. Slausen takes Jerry to fix their car. Eileen leaves to find a phone in the other house. There, she finds mannequins and a stranger wearing a grotesque mask appears behind her. Various items in the room move of their own accord and the scarf Eileen is wearing strangles her to death.
Slausen returns, saying that Jerry drove into town. When told that Eileen left, he goes to the house and finds Eileen has been turned into a mannequin. He returns and tells Molly and Becky he did not find Eileen. Frustrated, the women leave to search for her themselves. Becky enters the house and finds a mannequin resembling Eileen. She is attacked by the masked killer and multiple mannequins. She later wakes up tied in the basement with Jerry. Jerry says the killer is Slausen's brother Davey. Also held captive is Tina, another traveler, who is strapped to a table. She is killed by the masked man. Jerry frees himself and attacks the killer, but is overpowered.
Molly is pursued by the masked man. She meets Slausen, who drives her to the museum and gives her a gun while he goes inside. The masked man appears and Molly shoots, but the gun is loaded with blanks. The man removes the mask, revealing himself to be Slausen. Molly is soon captured and restrained to a bed.
Becky and Jerry escape from the basement but get separated. Slausen takes Becky back to the museum. There, she is killed by an Indian chief figure who throws a knife at her, stabbing her in the back of the head. Back at the house, Jerry arrives to rescue Molly, but he has unknowingly turned into a mannequin. Slausen dances with the figure of his wife, and Molly sees that the wife has become animated. Traumatized, she kills Slausen with an axe.
The next morning, a now-insane Molly drives away with the mannequin versions of her friends.
Cast
Production
Conception
The screenplay for Tourist Trap was written by David Schmoeller and J. Larry Carroll, the latter of whom pitched the film to producer Charles Band. Initially, Schmoeller intended for John Carpenter to direct the film, but Carroll was unsatisfied with the financial arrangements, and opted instead that Schmoeller should direct. Carroll and Schmoeller had previously pitched the film to producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and Bruce Cohn Curtis, but were unable to secure a production arrangement.
The original screenplay did not feature the telekinetic powers; according to Carroll, the idea was proposed by Band, who insisted it be implemented into the script. Schmoeller drew inspiration from the surrealist films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Luis Buñuel, as well as his observations of store mannequins in a JCPenney department store.