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OK. This is one of those movies where, honestly? I may very well have intended to rent something else entirely with a similar title. What we apparently have here is Tourist Trap, a cheesy horror movie from 1979, which of course means it seems extremely primitive in terms of visual style compared to movies from, say, 1980. Honestly, watching all the cheesy garbage I have been lately, it's honestly kinda creepy just how radically the visual quality of horror movies jumped on January 1st 1980. In any case, the menu screen here has some weirdly light-hearted Warner Bros. cartoon music going on. Like, the sort of thing you'd hear while Bugs Bunny is sneaking up behind Elmer Fudd or something. Hitting play, yeah, here it is playing over the opening credits too. Which are going on for way too long being just text on a black screen.
OK, so, we have some kid rolling a single tire down the highway for some reason. Him Wheelie. Him... dork who's probably going to die first. Apparently his friend got a flat tire and he ran off to get a replacement. On the way back though, he stops at a little rest stop sorta place to get something to drink I guess... and I have to wonder how that works. I mean, shouldn't he have passed this place on the way to get the tire in the first place? Wouldn't he have head in then? It's likely for them to have a spare tire for sale, and it'd reduce his travel time significantly. And, oh yeah right. I should probably mention that he wandered in, didn't see anyone, ended up in a back room full of weird laughing manikins and general poltergeisty shaking chairs and cupboards and such and is eventually killed by stuff flying across the room including a knife that stabs him. Honestly though, I'm still just preoccupied with how he had the tire already. Seriously, this strikes me as a huge plot hole.
Anyway, the rest of the gang, by which I mean the girl who needed the tire and the 3 other friends who were apparently in a second car, break down in the middle of the totally not dark, totally not spooky, just plain quite pleasant woods. Now see, here's the other thing! They had friends behind them? Even if they had a significant lead, why not wait for them and get a ride to the gas station? Or better yet, bum their spare tire of'em? Anyway, the girls (which is 3 of the 4) decide to go skinny dipping in this waterfall-pond sorta deal. You know the type. So yeah, as per the curse, here's- oh, no! We cut away! Guy works on the car some. Meanwhile, a creepy cowboy wanders over to the girls and rambles about how he used to make a lot of money charging people to swim here back before they built that new highway. Kinda reminds me of Cars. And... hey wait! The swimming hole scene is over? The girls are re-dressed? The curse of boobs-by-paragraph-3 is broken! Rock on!
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Anyway, creepy cowboy offers everyone a lift because the car's still not working... and I believe someone just referred to Guy as Garlic Boy. That's weird and random and I am so running with it. Anyway, Cowboy has this really weird ability to just casually belt out exposition at this amazing pace. I mean, in the span of like 5 seconds he just rattled off 20 details about his life, the setting, foreshadowing... it's pretty impressive. Uh, the short version is, he's running this weird museum sorta thing with animatronic dummies his brother built that seems like the kind of place you can buy a stuffed jackalope and a cow skull, and he's got kind of this Scooby Doo villain vibe going on. He also warns the girls to stay away from the house next door.
Naturally, one of the girls arbitrarily decides to immediately go snoop around inside. It's full of creepy manikins. The creepiest of the manikins is this one that totally looks like Gary Busey with Gilligan's hat, is fully ambulatory, and has telekinesis which it uses to strap her down and presumably kill her. Meanwhile, back in the museum, the other two girls poke around at THOSE manikins (are we picking up a theme here kids?) and marveling at how they feel like living flesh. Then Cowboy comes by to offer everyone a can of Dr. Pepper from his Product Placement Fridge. He also starts his crazy exposition efficiency thing up again, mainly talking about his dead wife. It's not even like he talks really fast or anything either, it's just like, every single sentence is a segue into the next. Oh, and since Cowboy is now wandering off looking for stupid girl, I should mention that he has this little crazy bit going where he claims his dummy of Davie Crocket is kind of a jerk and can't live in the same building as the General Custer one. Oh yeah, and he discovers that stupid girl has been magically transformed into a manikin. Have you finished making PUPPETS, Toby?
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I actually like Cowboy Toby here. I mean, yeah, he's apparently some sort of evil wizard, or at least the close friend of one, working to cover up this whole bit of people being transformed into evil ambulatory manikins, but he still comes off as a nice guy who deserves your respect. Kinda like the lich from WC3, you know? I would totally let that lich babysit for me if, you know, I had kids, needed a baby sitter, and was somehow friends with a character from an RTS game, and he offered to do it. But I digress. So anyway, later that night, the two girls go off to poke around the creepy house some more, and meanwhile, Garlic Boy seems to have just totally wandered out of the movie. So anyway, yeah, here's girl 2 getting all accosted by Manikin John Travolta-in-drag, and various not especially animated manikins. Now, it should be noted that a lot of what this movie does is just play off the natural creepiness of manikins, which, yeah, are fairly creepy. But they aren't nearly as creepy as ventriloquists' dummies.
Anyway, Drag-Queen Travolta ties her up and dumps her in the basement... and says "Why don't you like me?" so... yeah, drag queen is totally accurate. That is so a male voice. It's also apparently Cowboy Toby's brother in what the characters are assuming is a creepy costume. Oh, and Garlic Boy is already down here in the basement! How handy! And... hey wait a minute. Girl 1 is down here too? Are we suddenly up a character? Was she just replaced with a creepy dummy by conventional means? For the benefit of Cowboy Toby? Somewhat confusing. But in any case, John Travolta, who looks a bit more like Elvis now really, is covering girl 1 in plaster and being creepy. He explains that this is freaky enough that it's going to give her a fatal heart attack, which it does. Garlic Boy, enraged, breaks free of his restraints and attacks. Not very successfully.
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Meanwhile, upstairs, girl 3 answers the phone but gets there too late. See how not wandering around keeps your life nice and dull? But anyway, after that pointless exchange, here's Elvis having a really nice and civil conversation with Girl 2 and Garlic Boy. He explains that Cowboy Toby really is totally out of the loop here and, honestly, he just comes off as incredibly disturbing with how relaxed and rational he is here. It's like, "so yeah. The other day I was killing people and making them into evil telekinetic dummies, and I was thinking you know? This is kind of a weird hobby, isn't it?"
Eventually though he wanders off to go find Girl 3 and show her how he has this dummy head that totally looks like Gary Busey with Gilligan's hat. This freaks her out and sends her running off through the woods. I guess that's somewhat understandable, but come on, she's acting like he's trying to kill her here. She bumps into Cowboy Toby and relates her tale of horror. Oh yeah, that's just my crazy brother. And seriously, why is girl 3 so freaked out? Nothing bad has happened to her except seeing a weirdo with a puppet head going "Hey, see my friend?" She's all ready to call in a SWAT team to bring him down in a hail of gunfire. I'm not saying that wouldn't be a good idea, I'm just saying that she is totally acting on out-of-character knowledge here. That's a big no-no.
So the two of them end up heading back to the house, Cowboy Toby lends Girl 3 his shotgun to fend off any crazy weirdos while he looks for his brother inside. Said brother wanders up, in a totally non-threatening manner. she pumps 2 shots into him then clubs him over the head. You know, it's a good thing this guy's a horror movie baddie and thus essentially invulnerable, because you so can't call self defense on that one. Anyway though, all this abuse destroys his mask revealing... Old man Cowboy Toby! I told you he was a Scooby Doo villain! And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids! Oh wait, yeah, he's totally on top of that. 1 is dead, 2 are locked in the basement, and the last he is now chasing down and either capturing or drowning in the pond. He then comes home, puts on a spare ask, and has a nice lunch with one of his manikins. Oh hey, it's not just any manikin, it's cross dressing John Travolta! Said manikin's head pops off after saying the soup is good. "Aw, I need to fix that." He does, then comes to show her off to girl 3.
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You know, at this point in the movie, it's actually a possibility that this guy's whole deal is just being telekinetic and a bit crazy, with an odd sense of humor. Although I suppose he did outright kill the one girl. So yeah, Girl 3 is off in her own room, Girl 2 and Garlic Boy are breaking their chains and making a break for it, and Toby is... playing with dolls, while wearing this Barbie sorta mask. They suck at escaping though. Garlic Boy hops through a window, followed by a pursuing Toby, and then a pretty dang ballsy Girl 2 running the other way. Toby takes advantage of the fact that only Girl 3 knows Cowboy Toby and Creepy Mask Weirdo are the same guy though and brings her back inside. This is just one of many scenes that really doesn't add up if we don't assume that, like these people so often can, Toby can teleport at will when off camera. Back at the ranch, he kinda freaks out Girl 3 with this whole animatronic cowboys and indians fight scene and kinda accidentally uh, lands a throwing knife in the back of her neck. He seems to fee pretty bad about it at least.
Well, Garlic Boy's out in the woods last we checked, so I suppose it's back to Girl 3. Not really a whole lot going on with Girl 3 really. Toby's just kinda sitting in a chair watching her. Oh, and making dummies look at her and sing. Keep in mind though, she'll freak out over anything. Still, he likes her, and gives her a mask of his dead wife's face, and gets all creepy hitting on her. Then he suddenly gets all horrified as he realizes that at some point, he murdered his wife and brother over having an affair. He goes on to rationalize this thusly: "That's what the law says. If a man catches his wife cheatin' on him, he has a right to kill them both." OK. I'm almost positive that's not actually legal anywhere, but it's another reason to read up on your local state laws. And he still feels bad about having done it.
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Suddenly, Garlic Boy apparently decides it's about time to wander back into the movie again. Just, you know, having some trouble with the door here. He's coming though, just give him a minute... ah, here he is. Toby's just standing there all depressed still. Garlic Boy asks where the other two girls are, which is kinda weird since, dude, you were in the room when one of them was killed. Oh, OK. Turns out this is just a weirdly realistic Garlic Boy manikin. Dude really loves his practical jokes. Then that little revelation made, Toby starts dancing with a very animated manikin while the rest just generally menace Girl 3. But, having now officially attained Final Girl status, she is allowed to pick up an axe off the floor and bury it in the back of his neck.
The next morning, she apparently packs up the manikin versions of her friends into the car, and drives away. Movie over. Actually, it's kinda hard to tell, but I think she might have actually grabbed Gary Busey instead of Garlic Boy. Also, I'm still really not sure whether Toby was turning people into puppets, or just killing them and making puppets based on their appearance. It's weird for that to be so ambiguous. Also, hey, she only grabbed 3 manikins! Why no Wheelie? Did she just forget about him or what? I guess there's no real reason to assume he wound up in the same weirdo's house, but still. Guy was just one giant walking font of plot holes.
