TOURIST TRAP

TOURIST TRAP

2014 just keeps getting better, with yet another favourite horror classic making its way onto blu-ray...

A group of young adults decide to go on a road trip together. Almost immediately, one of them, Woody (Keith McDermott), suffers a blowout and goes looking for assistance. Alas, all he finds is a seemingly abandoned petrol station populated by eerie-looking dolls. Woody never returns to his friends …

Speaking of which, the group in question – Jerry (Jon Van Ness), Eileen (Robin Sherwood), the beautiful Becky (Tanya Roberts) and puritanical blonde Molly (Jocelyn Jones) – decide to go in search of errant Woody … eventually happening upon a disused wax museum, Slausen’s Lost Oasis. Good job really, as they run out of fuel at this point.

Believing the place to be deserted, the three girls go skinny-dipping in the idyllic lake behind the museum. That’s where they first meet Slausen (Chuck Connors), the museum’s owner.

He invites the group back to his place, introducing them to his uncannily lifelike wax creations and telling them of how he had to shut the business down when his wife’s death from cancer coincided with the government taking his land to build a highway over it. Now he lives with only memories and mannequins for company.

So, he’s happy to let the kids stay while they wait to get fuel for their car. His one stipulation is that they don’t snoop around. For their own safety. You know the drill.

Of course, it’s no time at all before one of the group does just that. And, er, becomes the subject of a scary set-piece as a consequence.

What happens next? Get watching! If you’ve missed this film in the past, you’re in for a treat.

An under-valued horror film from 1979, TOURIST TRAP was released in the wake of HALLOWEEN’s runaway success and subsequently got all-but-lost amid the glut of increasingly gory stalk’n’slash flicks that dogged the genre throughout the next couple of years.

In truth the film, while ostensibly tossing out the then-familiar pitch of a bunch of teens getting picked off one-by-one by a psycho with obscured motivation, is anything but a slasher picture.

Its most obvious forefather on paper would have to be HOUSE OF WAX and its many derivatives seen between its 50s release and the late 1970s. But once you view TOURIST TRAP, it makes much more sense to appropriate it with Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (its unconventional, disturbingly sympathetic monster; the twisted take on the traditional American family; the backwoods setting; the favouring of hysteria over gore). Bizarrely, TRAP also brings to mind Hooper’s FUNHOUSE – which, of course, it predates by a good couple of years. It’s impossible not to give a nod to DERANGED either, especially during some crucial latter-half scenes. And that alone, in my mind, is mighty praise indeed.

Pino Donaggio’s score is at times light and playful, at others boisterous and melodramatic. It’s at its best though when it’s somewhere between the two, echoing ALICE SWEET ALICE’s score with its haunting female vocal melodies.

The film’s greatest strength is its intelligent production design. Despite a readily apparent low budget, an atmosphere of almost constant creepiness is achieved. The mannequins are convincingly scary, Slausen’s surreal living arrangements unnerve from the moment we first see them (the dummy recreations of families sitting in everyday situations is marvellously scary), and each set-piece is beautifully constructed to evoke subtle chills before culminating in jangling thrills. Who cares that nary a drop of blood is spilt? It’s testament to the efficiency of David Schmoeller’s taut direction that the film doesn’t need it to reach such feverous pitches of demented terror.

A product of its time, you can rest assured the film plays into certain genre conventions: city folks’ fear of their rural cousins; teenagers who look at least 23 years old; laughably smooth music to signify any romantic interest; overplayed villains; dumb twist endings; the goody-goody girl who’s guaranteed to make it to the end.

But, overall, TOURIST TRAP is a superior genre entry originally released when virtually every other horror film coming out was either a piece of shit Italian knock-off or nondescript American slasher opportunist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m into them too: but when a film strives to achieve something more and buck trends of its time, I can’t help but love it all the more.

And who can fail to fall for a tale about a telekinetic model-maker that ends with such a fantastically ambiguous final frame?

88 Films bring TOURIST TRAP to UK blu-ray in a pretty fine-looking 1080p transfer. Blacks are strong and free from blocking; colours are deep and vivid. There's a slight soft, glowing effect to some images - almost dreamlike in their quality. This isn't a transfer flaw; it's more in keeping with how the film naturally looked. If you've seen the JUST BEFORE DAWN blu-ray transfer, for example, you'll know what I mean. It wasn't uncommon for its time (1979). Detail is fine, close-ups are particularly impressive and skin-tones escape any trace of unsightly noise reduction. The print is clean, the transfer is true to its source and respectful of the original filmic quality. Nice.

BUT there is a major caveat to be made aware of when considering this presentation. 88 Films were provided with the new HD master from America and, for whatever reason, the version of the film on this disc differs from the version previously seen by fans. For a start there's well over 3 minutes of footage missing from the film when compared against 88 Films' DVD release, and a couple of scenes appear at different junctures in the film to where they originally did.

In fairness, these differences were pointed out to me after I'd watched the blu-ray - I didn't notice! But now that I am aware of them, I'm a bit miffed. Fair enough, 88 Films have issued a statement apologising and explaining how they decided against inserting the missing scenes in standard definition due to a drop in quality ... but the excitement of having TOURIST TRAP is still sullied somewhat by it appearing as this odd, unexplained (seemingly truncated) version.

What with this and the non-restored picture quality of the BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, I predict 88 Films are about to find themselves at the heart of fanboy rants not seen since the early days of Arrow blu-rays.

English audio is available in choices of DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and LPCM stereo mixes. Both mixes are satisfyingly clean and clear propositions.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page. Pop-up menus include a scene selection which allows access to TOURIST TRAP via 8 chapters.

Of the nice set of bonus features on offer, the feature-length director’s commentary is doubtlessly the most comprehensive. The highlight of which are the filmmaker’s comments on Connors, the wonderful character actor who had hopes of ending his illustrious career as a modern-day Boris Karloff. It didn’t quite work out that way for the great man, bless him, but that was through no fault of his excellent turn in TRAP.

"Exit Through the Chop Shop" is a new 24-minute featurette in which Schmoeller details his break into filming and how he got to work on TOURIST TRAP. It's a well-edited, laidback and engrossing proposition.

The film's original theatrical trailer is presented in HD and looks very nice indeed. It runs for precisely 2 minutes.

A 3-and-a-half minute gallery is attractively produced, set to the film's playful opening score and features such delights as pages from the film's original script, lobby cards, on-location photographs and theatrical post art from around the world. Great stuff.

Although not provided with the screener disc, this release also comes with reversible cover art. So buyers can hide that new artwork and display the iconic doll mask poster art instead.

TOURIST TRAP may finally receive the attention it so richly deserves now, thanks to this blu-ray from 88 Films.

For anyone who bought their DVD of the film a short while back and who is now uncertain as to whether or not this is worth upgrading to ... possibly. The transfer is markedly superior in HD and the new extras round off proceedings nicely. The lossless audio is not to be sniffed at either. But the dark shadow for many is going to be that mystifying HD master, proffering a totally different (shorter) cut of the film than the one we're all familiar with...

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by 88 Films
Region B
Rated 18
Extras :
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