Tourist Trap (1979) on Netflix
Woody goes for a gas station after a tire blows in the desert. Eileen and the group reach Slausen's Lost Oasis, a wax museum run by Mr. Slausen, and their car dies.
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- Rotten Tomatoes57%
Trailer
Plot summary
A flat tire in the desert sends Woody off to find a gas station, leaving Eileen with the car. Their friends Becky, Jerry and Molly are traveling separately, and they pick Eileen up so the group can collect Woody together. The car instead dies at Slausen's Lost Oasis, a rundown roadside attraction whose owner, Mr. Slausen, has watched a new freeway take his customers away. He keeps a collection of lifelike wax figures and offers to help with the jeep, then asks the women to wait inside his museum while he and Jerry fetch his tools. Eileen is curious about a house nearby. Woody, meanwhile, reaches the gas station he was looking for, and it appears to be deserted.
Cast
- Arlecchinoas Mannequin
- Victoria Richartas Mannequin
- Millie Dillas Mannequin
Show all 14 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tourist Trap (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mr. Slausen was offered to older Hollywood actors Jack Palance and Gig Young, who both turned it down; Chuck Connors, the crew's third choice, took the role, which came with a $50,000 salary from the film's budget.
SPOILER
To keep secret the twist that Davey and Mr. Slausen are the same man, Chuck Connors is billed as Mr. Slausen under his own name, while his credit for Davey uses the pseudonym "Shailar Coby", taken from the first and middle name of director David Schmoeller's son.- For the poltergeist effects in the opening scene, the set was constructed rotated 90 degrees so the crew could hurl objects from a cabinet anchored to the ceiling down to the floor, which appeared on camera as a wall.
- Some interiors were shot in an abandoned house at 5255 Hollywood Boulevard that was due to be demolished, and David Schmoeller arranged with the contractor to delay the demolition by five days, saving an estimated $30,000 in set construction and soundstage fees.
- The original screenplay had no telekinetic powers; according to Carroll, producer Charles Band proposed the idea and insisted it be written into the script.
SPOILER
For the death of Becky, played by Tanya Roberts, a block of wood was taped behind her hair and a knife attached to a wire was thrown at the back of her head, lodging in the wood.
