July 15, 2018
Directed by: David Schmoeller
Tagline: Every year young people disappear
Trivia: The script originally called for nudity, but Schmoeller said he was too bashful and embarrassed to bring it up with Tanya Roberts and the other actresses during casting. When they got to the lake scene, he finally asked them if they'd be willing. The collective answer was no.
At 6 pm on Friday the 13th, Joe Bob Briggs (famous movie critic and hosts of Drive-In Theater and MonsterVision) released his one time (please say this isn't the end) twenty four hour horror movie marathon called The Last Drive In. Joe Bob brings his classic wit and encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia as he hosts some of the best and weirdest horror movies. During that night, #TheLastDriveIn was the number one trending hashtag on twitter and Shudder's servers crashed several times. It was a huge success. Unfortunately, I had to work and had guests over to celebrate the San Diego Pride Festival and a couple of them hated horror movies (I know, what the fuck right?). So I'm going to be watching the individual episodes and providing my commentary on them. I am going to do my best not to repeat Joe Bob's commentary, also I am not going to be commenting on Joe Bob or any part of The Last Drive In. These discussion, like all my previous discussions, will simply be on the films themselves.
The first film is an odd masked slasher film from 1979 called Tourist Trap. The masked slasher genre had been kick started the year before with the huge success of Halloween. After Halloween, there came dozens of films with a masked killer tormenting teens (My Bloody Valentine, Terror Train, Friday the 13th Part 2, Pieces, etc). Tourist Trap uses some of the conventions of the teen slasher genre but remains a one of a kind movie that has more in common with Texas Chainsaw Massacre than with Halloween.
Tourist Trap is the story of a group of teenagers whose car breaks down and they are offered help from a seemingly kind older man who runs a failing wax museum. What the teenagers soon find out is that the kind old man has telekinetic powers that he uses to make the wax figures and mannequins come to life to torture and murder. If that isn't enough, the man is also suffering from a multiple personality disorder (think Norman Bates and his mom) which forces him to put on a mannequin mask and women's clothes, talk in a deep voice, and murder people. If the plot of this movie seems bizarre, it is because it is.
There is a scene at the beginning of the film that is absolutely perfect! One of the teenagers enters the house, before we meet the older man. At this point the film is about him. Upon entering the house, a mannequin breaks through the window with its head falling off while another pops out of the closet rocking back and forth and laughing. Immediately nearly everything in the room is launched at the young man who tries to shield himself from the break glass. Then everything stops. We hear a soft dripping sound as the camera pans down to see a pipe stabbed through the young man and his blood dripping from the end of the pipe onto the floor. Like Psycho, the movie begins with the main character being the first to be killed off. This means, no one is safe. This technique was also done in Black Christmas and it would be done again in Scream. Also, we are given no explanation for what has happened. Are the mannequins alive? Is the house alive?
There are some other great scenes in the film. The most memorable scene in the film is when the killer has a girl strapped to a table as two other teenagers are tied up in the room and forced to watch. The killer narrates the woman's death to her as he places plaster onto her face. Aside from being a very original way to kill a person (a huge feat in a genre that has utilized nearly every conceivable way to commit murder), it is the killer's matter-of-fact commentary on his actions that makes the scene so creepy. Knowing that the other two fare the same fate, the movie creates an anxiety in the characters and the viewer.
The score and art direction of the film also create a creepy unsettling feeling. Parts of the score contain this odd breath singing that I can only compare to what Maude is listening to while flying over the canvass dripping paint in The Big Lebowski. It's odd, out of place, and unsettling. Also, the killer's house which is filled with mannequins and wax sculptures is unpleasant. The director David Schmoeller (who would have success writing and directing the Puppetmaster movies) went to the University of Texas film school where Tobe Hooper, the director/writer of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had also graduated earlier. The look and feel that Hooper created in the Texas Chainsaw massacre is all over Tourist Trap. The West Texas middle of nowhere setting. The house filled with clutter. Even the killer's mask mildly resembles leatherface's. It is obvious that Schmoeller was heavily inspired by Hooper and his work.
And then there is Tanya Roberts. Tanya Roberts is absolutely stunning in this film. Her acting is great and this is probably her best role (better in my humble opinion than Sheena or in the Beastmaster). Seriously, she is so hot.
I really don't think the film needed a Norman Bates-type of multiple personality crossdressing killer AND a killer with telekinetic powers. Individually, either of these character traits would have been more than enough for the movie, but together they just create an odd film mixture that moves back and forth between creepy and silly.
The whole movie is so bizarre it could have only been made in the seventies. It was at this time that moviemaking rules went out the window. This film is proof of that. So weird and so good.
At 6 pm on Friday the 13th, Joe Bob Briggs (famous movie critic and hosts of Drive-In Theater and MonsterVision) released his one time (please say this isn't the end) twenty four hour horror movie marathon called The Last Drive In. Joe Bob brings his classic wit and encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia as he hosts some of the best and weirdest horror movies. During that night, #TheLastDriveIn was the number one trending hashtag on twitter and Shudder's servers crashed several times. It was a huge success. Unfortunately, I had to work and had guests over to celebrate the San Diego Pride Festival and a couple of them hated horror movies (I know, what the fuck right?). So I'm going to be watching the individual episodes and providing my commentary on them. I am going to do my best not to repeat Joe Bob's commentary, also I am not going to be commenting on Joe Bob or any part of The Last Drive In. These discussion, like all my previous discussions, will simply be on the films themselves.
The first film is an odd masked slasher film from 1979 called Tourist Trap. The masked slasher genre had been kick started the year before with the huge success of Halloween. After Halloween, there came dozens of films with a masked killer tormenting teens (My Bloody Valentine, Terror Train, Friday the 13th Part 2, Pieces, etc). Tourist Trap uses some of the conventions of the teen slasher genre but remains a one of a kind movie that has more in common with Texas Chainsaw Massacre than with Halloween.
Tourist Trap is the story of a group of teenagers whose car breaks down and they are offered help from a seemingly kind older man who runs a failing wax museum. What the teenagers soon find out is that the kind old man has telekinetic powers that he uses to make the wax figures and mannequins come to life to torture and murder. If that isn't enough, the man is also suffering from a multiple personality disorder (think Norman Bates and his mom) which forces him to put on a mannequin mask and women's clothes, talk in a deep voice, and murder people. If the plot of this movie seems bizarre, it is because it is.
There is a scene at the beginning of the film that is absolutely perfect! One of the teenagers enters the house, before we meet the older man. At this point the film is about him. Upon entering the house, a mannequin breaks through the window with its head falling off while another pops out of the closet rocking back and forth and laughing. Immediately nearly everything in the room is launched at the young man who tries to shield himself from the break glass. Then everything stops. We hear a soft dripping sound as the camera pans down to see a pipe stabbed through the young man and his blood dripping from the end of the pipe onto the floor. Like Psycho, the movie begins with the main character being the first to be killed off. This means, no one is safe. This technique was also done in Black Christmas and it would be done again in Scream. Also, we are given no explanation for what has happened. Are the mannequins alive? Is the house alive?
There are some other great scenes in the film. The most memorable scene in the film is when the killer has a girl strapped to a table as two other teenagers are tied up in the room and forced to watch. The killer narrates the woman's death to her as he places plaster onto her face. Aside from being a very original way to kill a person (a huge feat in a genre that has utilized nearly every conceivable way to commit murder), it is the killer's matter-of-fact commentary on his actions that makes the scene so creepy. Knowing that the other two fare the same fate, the movie creates an anxiety in the characters and the viewer.
The score and art direction of the film also create a creepy unsettling feeling. Parts of the score contain this odd breath singing that I can only compare to what Maude is listening to while flying over the canvass dripping paint in The Big Lebowski. It's odd, out of place, and unsettling. Also, the killer's house which is filled with mannequins and wax sculptures is unpleasant. The director David Schmoeller (who would have success writing and directing the Puppetmaster movies) went to the University of Texas film school where Tobe Hooper, the director/writer of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had also graduated earlier. The look and feel that Hooper created in the Texas Chainsaw massacre is all over Tourist Trap. The West Texas middle of nowhere setting. The house filled with clutter. Even the killer's mask mildly resembles leatherface's. It is obvious that Schmoeller was heavily inspired by Hooper and his work.
 |
| Looks a little like Leatherface. |
And then there is Tanya Roberts. Tanya Roberts is absolutely stunning in this film. Her acting is great and this is probably her best role (better in my humble opinion than Sheena or in the Beastmaster). Seriously, she is so hot.
I really don't think the film needed a Norman Bates-type of multiple personality crossdressing killer AND a killer with telekinetic powers. Individually, either of these character traits would have been more than enough for the movie, but together they just create an odd film mixture that moves back and forth between creepy and silly.
The whole movie is so bizarre it could have only been made in the seventies. It was at this time that moviemaking rules went out the window. This film is proof of that. So weird and so good.
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