Really Awful Movies: Ep 49 – Tourist Trap

~ reallyawfulmovies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:55 — 28.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Email | RSS | More

Tourist Trap is a weird, overlooked and under-seen horror classic. On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we give this movie its due.

“God help those who get caught in the Tourist Trap, where beautiful young people looking for excitement…are TRICKED, TERRORIZED, TRAPPED…”

It’s “the nightmare that never ends” as well, but we digress.

It’s a 1979 American horror film directed by David Schmoeller, and starring Chuck Connors, the Brooklynite known for his four decades in the entertainment business, as well as playing in two professional sports leagues. Tourist Trap also stars Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, and Tanya Roberts. The film revolves around a group of friends who wind up stranded at Mr. Slausen’s out of the way “museum,” where the mannequins are very lifelike.

Despite its name, Tourist Trap is definitely not your standard, lost-by-the-roadside movie. It’s way more supernatural and oddball.

It predated the slasher boom and was a bit lost among the shuffle…so it’s our job to spread the word…also, the film features one of the great kills in horror history, and is mentioned in our book, Death by Umbrella! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 48b – Social Media and Horror Movies

~ reallyawfulmovies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:56 — 20.6MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Email | RSS | More

The use of social media in horror.

In this week’s podcast, social media in horror through a discussion of two low-budget films, Panic Button, a British feature and iMurders, both of which feature social media. The latter features a chatroom killer and the former, a social media-heavy reality show whose contestants are being messed with mid-air.

Billy Dee Williams and William Forsythe are two of the notables in iMurders!

We discuss the above movies, as well as Catfish, Videodrome and the influence of Marshall McLuhan.

No one is safe in cyberspace!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 48 – Manos: The Hands of Fate

~ reallyawfulmovies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:52 — 19.2MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Email | RSS | More

In the infamous Manos: the Hands of Fate, a family (and their little dog too) gets lost in the back roads of rural Texas and stumbles upon a hidden, sinister, devil-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master and his hunched over man-servant Torgo.

Guess roadside assistance was hard to come by. General rule: avoid abandoned homes in the middle of nowhere, tended to by weirdo midget manservants.

There is a very odd subplot involving a vice squad busting teens making out in convertibles, with booze stashed in glove compartment.

The film’s plot (threadbare that it is) revolves around a vacationing family who lose their way on a road trip. After a long drive in the Texas desert, the family finds themselves trapped at a lodge maintained by a polygamous pagan cult (don’t you hate it when that happens?) Then, they attempt to escape as the cult’s members decide what to do with them.

Manos is infamous for its technical deficiencies, especially its considerable editing and continuity flaws; its soundtrack and visuals not being synchronized; dull-as-dirt pacing; truly terrible acting; and several scenes that are seemingly inexplicable or disconnected from the overall plot, such as a couple making out in a car or The Master’s wives brawling with one another. 

The movie, very unfairly described as one of the worst of all time is out on Blu-Ray. It makes a perfect stocking stuffer.