Summer of Slash: Tourist Trap
In 1980 the American slasher craze kicked into high gear. A glut of boring, stale, and monotonous (not to mention tedious) films were being released on the cheap and flooding American theaters and drive-ins. If you're like me, though, and you're intrigued by the film's that were released prior to the onslaught of mediocrity known as the 1980 American horror film, then perhaps you should check out the oddity that is Tourist Trap. Here's a film that cribs from its better predecessors (making it one of the first referential horror films) – Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, House of Wax, and Repulsion – and adds creepy mannequins and a unsettling and unorthodox musical score that makes for one of the more interesting (in a both good and often bad way) late 70's horror films. Tourist Trap is all at once eerie and goofy, nasty and sterile, creepy and laugh-out-loud awful...in other words: I don't think I've seen a horror film like it.