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Tourist Trap

Tourist Trap

Horror · Fantasy · 1979

After their car breaks down, a group of young travelers find themselves stranded at a roadside museum run by the enigmatic Mr. Slausen and populated by his collection of life-like wax mannequins.

Movie details

Tourist Trap

“You'll never be the same again!”

1979 Horror · Fantasy 1h 29m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.0 / 10

14.9K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

67 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

6.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

After their car breaks down, a group of young travelers find themselves stranded at a roadside museum run by the enigmatic Mr. Slausen and populated by his collection of life-like wax mannequins.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Tourist Trap?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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The Mummy

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Mr. Sardonicus

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In 1880, Sir Robert Cargrave, a London physician known for his experimental work in paralysis treatment, is summoned to Gorslava by the mysterious Baron Sardonicus—who is now married to Cargrave's former wife, Maude—to treat his disfigurement. When Cargrave arrives, he finds the masked baron is a cruel sadist who has threatened to harm Maude if he is not successfully cured.

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Mystery of the Wax Museum

Mystery of the Wax Museum

Horror · 1933

A wax sculptor opens a new museum years after he is severely injured during a fire that destroyed his original collection. The disappearance of both people and corpses coincides with this grand reopening and leads a reporter to start investigating.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

David Schmoeller

Written by

David Schmoeller · J. Larry Carroll

Chuck Connors

Chuck Connors

Mr. Slausen / Davey Slausen

Jocelyn Jones

Jocelyn Jones

Molly

Jon Van Ness

Jon Van Ness

Jerry

Robin Sherwood

Robin Sherwood

Eileen

Tanya Roberts

Tanya Roberts

Becky

Dawn Jeffory

Dawn Jeffory

Tina

Keith McDermott

Keith McDermott

Woody

Court is in session

Put Tourist Trap on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Prestige Tourist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.