31 movies to watch in October: Tourist Trap

Welcome to day eight of 31 movies to watch in October! How are you holding up so far? We made it through Halloween Town, a witch in the woods, something wicked, a ghost, a headless horseman and some killer Halloween masks, so what will today bring?

Let’s take a little trip back to 1979 and visit Tourist Trap. In keeping with the month of October, this crazy, creepy movie includes some of the scariest mannequins you will ever see on film. It opens like so many other horror films, with 5 friends on a road trip together and an unexpectedly flat tire. Woody walks to a desolate gas station, and ends up trapped in a room while looking for the proprietor.

While he is in the room, dangerous objects start to fly around, and terrifying mannequins appear to come to life. This is a super-intense scene, and things don’t end well for poor old Woody.

When Woody’s friends search for him, they end up in a “tourist trap” area, where their car breaks down. Things don’t look too good for our pals now, do they? Well, they only get worse from here. The girls go skinny dipping (as girls will in 1970s horror flicks), and weird Mr. Slausen shows up. He operates the former main attraction, a small museum inhabited by mannequins.

In true slasher form, our friends start disappearing one by one, and oddly enough, mannequins resembling them keep turning up. Intrigued yet? You should be. Tourist Trap features Chuck Connors in an all-out bonkers appearance as weird Mr. Slausen, and a young Tanya Roberts as Becky.

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The music is crazy and fantastic, and this is one fun, creepy flick. The Woody scene in the beginning is frightening, and those mannequins! Yikes, they have to be among the top five horrifying dolls/mannequins in the history of slasher films.

According to It Came from the 80s! Interviews with 124 Cult Filmmakers, John Carpenter was originally slated to direct Tourist Trap, but he and writers David Schmoeller and J. Larry Carroll could not come to a financial agreement, so Schmoeller ended up directing.

Tourist Trap is available to stream on Shudder and Tubi. If you watch it on Shudder, try to catch it on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs.

Will you be adding Tourist Trap to your viewing schedule for October? Let us know what you think about it in the comments section.