Cultarama

 

     So I was browsing through some old cult films that had made their way onto YouTube and came across this little gem from 1979.  I can't believe I made it this long without finding this film and making it a part of my collection here on Cultarama, because it truly deserves a coveted spot amongst the best of the best.  It boasts a faded star in Chuck Conners, who had wanted to reinvent himself and leave his square-jawed cowboy persona in the past.  A soon-to-be semi-famous, yet mostly topless star in Tanya Roberts, who for all her physical endowments and icy blue eyes cannot act her way out of a wet paper bag.  And a young professionally trained actress named Jocelyn Jones, who has gone on to be what many consider a film industry treasure and has taught some of the most accomplished actors out there, in addition to being a #1 bestselling author.  How she found her way into this freakshow of a movie is anyone's guess.

     It begins as your typical "omg, we have a flat tire, guess we'll have to stop at some desolate location and get murdered" setup with your average group of young and pretty victims.  Shortly before our new victims arrive, we get to see the bizarre murder of a previous victim who also picked the wrong roadside tourist attraction to attempt a call for help when dealing with a faulty car.  He enters a room and is confronted with laughing mannequins and poltergeist-like activity with bottles being thrown at him etc, until a flying pipe finally seals his fate.  Stephen King himself praised this terrifying opening scene in his nonfiction book about horror films Danse Macabre, and I definitely concur with Mr. King, it is truly intense and sets the tone for the next hour and twenty minutes.

     As our attractive visitors make it to Slausen's Lost Oasis roadside attraction, they neglect to notice a sign that says the attraction is closed to the public.  Despite this, when they arrive at The Lost Oasis they are greeted by Mr. Slausen who owns the place.  After being caught skinny dipping in a small lake on the property, the female members of the group (why is it always the women who skinny dip, are men in horror films not allowed to do this?) follow him into the attraction where he shows them his collection of animatronic mannequins and other nightmare fuel he's surrounded himself with.  He then pulls some dialogue straight out of Psycho by telling them that since the new highway has been built, no one comes to see his creepy collection.  Yeah, that's why.  When asked about the mansion behind the museum, he tells our young ladies that his brother Davy lives there and that he lives in the museum.  Eileen, the sassiest of the bunch, decides that Davy is the better choice of a helper than Mr. Slausen, being that he lives in a mansion and all, strikes out on her own and is therefore the first killed.  She is attacked by a combination killer that resembles the perfect marriage between Leatherface and Michael Myers with Carrie-like telekinetic abilities and finishes her off while all the mannequins laugh.

     We then have Becky, played by Tanya Roberts, going to look for her friend, making her the obvious second victim.  She finds Eileen but it appears she's been turned into a mannequin herself.  Hard to tell since the entire place is jam-packed with them.  Eileen turns around revealing her new plastic facade, scaring Becky in what is the worst jump scare reaction ever caught on film.  You'd think instead of leaping towards her, she just turned around and was like "Hey girl, killer or something around, might wanna head for the car". She gets caught and is taken to the cellar and tied up, where Jerry the only guy in the group is also tied up along with a girl who's evidently been captured and tortured for some time now and is just praying to hurry up and meet her maker, cuz she's over it.  "Plasterface" goes on about how he's Mr. Slausen's much more handsome brother, yet comes off completely gay about it.  The doll mask and blonde wig he's wearing don't help.  He's also evidently telekinetic and can move things.  

     Molly, the only girl left and the last surviving victim if there ever was one, escapes only to learn that Plasterface and Mr. Slausen are the same man with a split personality in yet another Psycho reference.  In addition to Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is invoked many times as well.  Both stories originate from the story of Ed Gein, and the similarities cannot be denied, only cheaply copied.  There's even a scene with Molly (the blonde) running through the woods yelling "Jerry!!" which is a scene taken verbatim from Texas Chainsaw.  Oh yeah, Becky gets killed with an ax, anyway...  

     Mr. Slausen has by now taken a keen liking to Molly and wants her to replace his dead bride.  Even though he confesses that he killed her and his own brother, cuz they were "whoring around" behind his back.  Personally, I wouldn't miss someone like that, but that's just me.  Mr. Slausen puts a doll face on Molly and smooches her pretty hard in what is a most uncomfortable scene before Jerry comes to the rescue.  But has he really?

     Molly cries out for Jerry to kill Mr. Slausen but he then gets his arm removed, then his head, etc, revealing that he too is another mannequin made to look alive by our telekinetic villain.  While Mr. Slausen is enjoying freaking Molly out to the fullest, she somehow dares to grab an ax and hit him in the neck, effectively killing him and all the laughing mannequins, who with their creepy oversized mouths, FINALLY shut the hell up.  The next morning we see Molly flying down the highway (guess she got the tire fixed, good for her) with all her mannequin friends in the backseat.  A look of fresh insanity on her face as her ratty blonde hair flaps in the cool breeze.

     The trivia for this film was abundant, but I'll only highlight the better ones.  The score, which the director hated but used anyway because it cost an entire 1/6 of the film's total budget, was done by the composer who scored Carrie only a few years prior.  Being that it's about a telekinetic misfit I guess is just a coinkinkidink.  Horror scream queen Linnea Quigly makes a brief cameo as a mannequin, but being that they all look the same, I still have no idea which one was her.  Chuck Conners insisted on using his kids' names in the credits for the actor who played Davy because no one wanted to give away the twist ending.  All in all, I thought it was a great film.  It had its flaws like every movie but the goofs were actually rather rare.  The premise of the telekinetically controlled mannequins and dolls was a great touch when creating a film experience destined to give people nightmares for years.  Yours truly included, I hate dolls.