Tourist Trap (1979)

 This was on Shudder's Slashics Channel, and I stumbled on it after watching "A Field in England" (2013). I have to watch this on Joe Bob's Drive-In next.

My favorite television series is The Twilight Zone and Serling always had mannequins over and over again, starting with "Where is Everybody?" So when I come across a horror film specializing in them, I'm all in big-time. When their eyes move, mouths open, and that unnerving sound comes out, that is the creepy goods I wholly embrace. And that atypical Donaggio score might have been rejected by Yablans, but I thought it added a ton of gravitas to the major creep-factor that really gave me goosebumps. Also the score added this melody that could be equal parts harmonious and unsettling. But whatever alchemic witchcraft Connors had working to conjure up such supernatural mannequins and such, it definitely felt like Jones, Roberts, and her friends stumbled on this whole other disturbing place few ever would want to venture.

I also love Connors' dedicated Vincent Price lunacy...it is absolutely delicious. I'm a big fan of his western show, The Rifleman, ever since I was a kid, so I love when I discovered this in the mid aughts...I still need to see Summer Camp Nightmare. And also I hadn't realized until I found this, Tanya Roberts was in it...even though lovely blond Jocelyn Jones (I know her from the Dirty Harry film, "The Enforcer") is the lead who must somehow escape from Connors' grasp.

That freeze frame with Jones behind the wheel with her "altered" friends "along for the ride" just gave me chills. Damn, does this film just work its spell on me. There is just nothing at all like it.