TOURIST TRAP
As technology has progressed through the decades there is one thing that it cannot replicate. Thanks to advancements in how films are made it is surprisingly incredible hard to make movies that are bad in the specific way that Tourist Trap from 1979 is bad. Bad movies are no longer bad in the same way. Tourist Trap is a clumsily put together collection of bad acting, daffy plotting and ridiculous practical effects. None of which you could possibly recreate forty years later in a world where there are TikToks that look like Terrence Malick films and half the people on the planet are ready to drop everything to become an actor.
Tourist Trap is one of my favourite kinds of bad horror movies. The sort where you can almost hear the whispered conversations that were had on set. “The fuck is this again? The mannequins at this tourist attraction are actually humans that have been turned into mannequins by the lunatic named Mr. Klausen who runs the place? And one by one all our characters are going to get turned into mannequins? And in the final scene I’m going to escape in a car loaded up with the mannequin versions of my friends? Is that right? Okay. Now explain to me again why we have to have a scene where we go skinny dipping after our car breaks down? It’s 1979, of course, I forgot what year it was.”
Where would I fit into Tourist Trap? Well, you wouldn’t need to sabotage my vehicle to get me to stop at a shitty looking tourist attraction on the side of the highway because shitty looking tourist attractions on the side of the highway are some of my favourite things. I would go out of my way to check out terrible animated mannequins recreate battle sequences. In fact, I have literally done exactly that.
If you’re ever in the town of Glenrowan in Victoria be sure to check out the absolutely terrible Ned Kelly’s Last Stand where atrocious animated mannequins recreate battle sequences. It’s a tourist attraction that scared the shit out of me as a child – because there’s genuinely a part of the attraction where you stand in a room filled with smoke that recreates the moment some of Ned’s gang died in a fire. The memory of being a child looking around this smoke filled room and seeing the feet of the dead body mannequin lying on the floor will stay with me forever. Heading back as an adult, though, is a must because it’s a true national treasure.
So, you can bet I would figure out a way to get myself to Slausen’s Lost Oasis without the need of any nefarious coercing.
IF I WERE IN 'TOURIST TRAP' I WOULD: LIVE OUT MY DAYS AS A GENERAL CUSTER MANNEQUIN, FROZEN FOREVER, BUT STILL EMBARRSSED EVERY TIME MY MOUSTACHE FALLS OFF
