1979’s Tourist Trap opens in the same way that many slasher films have opened.  A group of friends — young, attractive, and not particularly bright — are driving through a secluded, rural area when they have car trouble.

Now, I have to say that, if I was driving through a rural secluded area or even if I was just a passenger in the vehicle, I would totally freak out if the car broke down.  I mean, seriously, you’re in the middle of nowhere.  You have no idea who or what might be hiding behind those trees.  Even if you don’t get attacked by a bunch of inbred hillbilly cousins, you might get eaten by a bear or, even worse, you might get mauled by a deer and end up with Lyme Disease.  Or you might just end up with a bunch of flies buzzing around your face, which is really even worse than getting attacked by a wild animal.

(Pro-tip: One way to deal with flies is to combine the open flame of a lighter with a can of hairspray.)

I’ve seen enough slasher films to know that bad things happen when you get lost in the woods.  However, up until everything started getting all self-referential in the 1990s, old school slasher films were infamous for featuring characters who had apparently never seen a slasher film or really any other type of movie before.

Your car broke down in the woods?  One member of your party has already disappeared while looking for a gas station?  You have no way of letting anyone know where you are?  Sure, why not go skinny dipping?  For that matter, why not check out Slausen’s Lost Oasis, a run-down shack that is the home of a lot of wax figures and which is owned by the shotgun-toting Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors).  Mr. Slausen is pretty bitter about the new freeway.  It took away all of his business.

Of course, it turns out that there’s more to this tourist trap than meets the eyes.  For one thing, the mannequins often seem to randomly come to life and murder anyone who spends too much time alone with them.  Secondly, things in the tourist trap often move on their own, as if someone has psychic powers.  And then there the enigmatic man who wears a wax mask and likes to take people hostage before transforming them into wax figures….

Tourist Trap has a totally ludicrous plot but Slausen’s Oasis is such a creepy location and Chuck Connors plays his role with such unnerving intensity that it doesn’t matter that things don’t always make sense.  At its best, Tourist Trap plays out like a filmed nightmare, one in which the rules of normal physics often don’t seem to apply.  The victims are interchangeable (though I did like Tanya Roberts’s energetic performance as Becky) but the kills are imaginative and memorable gruesome.  Researching the film, I was surprised to discover that Tourist Trap was given a PG-rating, despite the skinny dipping and the blood and all of the terrifying wax figures.  Don’t let that rating fool you.  This is genuinely scary slasher film and one that everyone should see before going on an impulsive road trip to the middle of nowhere.