There is no denying it, mannequins and dolls can just be creepy. The more human the facsimile the more disturbing it can be. Mannequins especially are eerie, with their not quite formed features, frozen in time…just waiting to move when your eye drifts away from them. Other than a handful of appearances in thriller or sci-fi television shows such as “Twilight Zone” or “Doctor Who,” the potential unease mannequins have on people has pretty much been ignored.

The film is full of brooding, dreadful atmosphere. The scenes where various cast members are confronted by mannequins or hear whispering voices while the camera lingers on close ups on the mannequins’ painted faces are spine tingling. No review can do justice to the chills that you will feel when you see the mannequins’ eyes move or when the camera focuses on a bunch of mannequins, especially those in the foreground and a real person moves for a split second in the background. There are so many wonderfully scary and memorable moments in this film, from the capture and smothering of a victim with plaster with the intention of turning her into a mannequin by Conner’s supposed brother (a red herring of a suspect), to the army of openmouthed moaning mannequins that plague the virginal heroine Molly, played by Jocelyn Jones.

The movie is very mean spirited, with characters you might not expect to get killed off getting erased in some amazingly nasty ways. I still flinch when Tanya Roberts takes a tomahawk to the back of the head in a scene that aims to distract you in a flurry of activity before suddenly coming to a quiet stop with the almost casual death.

Tourist Trap is easily one of the scariest movies from the late 70’s with many unsettling moments and a story that, while falling under close scrutiny, still manages to hold up. Plus Conners, both as the evil brother Davey with his huge plaster pace and his deep baritone voice intoning “Little Girl!” and the benevolent Mr. Slausen who somehow manages to be both welcoming and perverted at the same time, shines in his role and brings a polished charm to the whole picture.

Other than being just a scary, eerie movie with great performances and creepy situations, Tourist Trap has a personal connection for me. Back when I was a young kid, my older sister and I would spend our Saturday afternoons whenever we could watching monster movies. One local channel, WWOR Channel 9, would usually have a rotation of creature features they would show every Saturday at 1 and 3 in the afternoon.

We were guaranteed that every couple of months the double bill of “Devil Dog: Hound of Hell” would be on at 1 and Tourist Trap would follow at 3. Of course every single time this was on we would both watch without fail. My family is Catholic and my mother always wanted to go to 5:30 Saturday Mass, so my sister and I would always have to stop watching when it was close to church time and go and get ready for Mass. Many years passed before I was able to see the last 15 minutes of Tourist Trap, which ironically were/are the weakest moments in the entire movie.

Some movies, after experiencing them as a child or a teenager, do not hold up as well when you view them years later. Thankfully Tourist Trap, while not the trip into terror it may have been years ago, still holds up today as an effective and creepy little chiller.