- Directed by David Schmoeller
- Written by David Schmoeller, J. Larry Carroll
- Stars Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDpxEdIxxg4
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
A roadside tourist attraction full of plaster dummies turns out to be more than a group of young people bargain for. It’s fairly tame, but atmospheric, with a good performance by Chuck Connors, and excellent use of some very creepy dummies and statues. There’s not much truly original here, but it’s all well done and entertaining. It still holds up.
Synopsis
A guy rolls his flat tire down the road. He walks to “Oscar’s”, a dusty old diner that looks out of business. The door is open, so he goes inside. He hears a woman moaning, but when he checks it out, it’s a laughing mannequin. Several other dummies and dolls jump out and scare him. Jars and bottles fly off the shelf and crash all around him. He’s finally impaled by a flying metal pipe.
Four young people drive past several signs for The Oasis, a tourist attraction, they see the tire that Woody had been pushing and wonder what happened to him. Their car breaks down for no apparent reason.
As Jerry works on the car, the three girls find a waterfall and decide to go for a swim. Someone is in the trees watching them. A creepy old cowboy with a gun walks by. They ask him about Woody, but the man, Mr. Slausen, says he hasn’t seen them. He warns them about water moccasins wiggling around their feet.
Slausen offers to help them out; just hop in the back of his truck and they’ll go back for some tools. He takes them to “Slausen’s Lost Oasis,” a former tourist resort. He’s a bit of a hoarder now. He explains that his brother made all the dummies in the place. He was really good with mechanical things. He and Jerry go back to fix the truck.
Eileen goes exploring and finds some strange talking dummies. Someone calls her name, and she thinks it’s the missing Woody. Doors slam, windows lock, chairs move, and the dummies start moving around. She’s then choked by her own scarf.
Meanwhile, Molly and Becky check out the mannequins and dummies. Their skin feels almost real, and it creeps out Molly. Slausen comes back and says Jerry took his truck to town for parts. He then tells a sad story about his wife dying of cancer. He notices that Eileen is gone and goes out looking for her.
He calls out to Davey. He finds Eileen, dead with a face mask like one of his dummies. Molly finds a photo album with Slausen’s wife, who looks just like that super-realistic dummy. Molly and Becky go out looking for Eileen as well. Becky sees the house that Eileen went into, and she goes in through an upstairs window. She gets trapped in a room with the crazy doll-man. She knocks him down, but then the mannequins themselves attack her.
The doll-man carries Becky downstairs and locks her in a room with another girl and Jerry, who didn’t really go for parts. Jerry explains that it’s Slausen’s crazy brother, Davey. Davey comes back downstairs and makes them all drink. The other girl, Tina, is strapped down to a table, and Davey puts plaster all over until she smothers.
Jerry breaks loose and attacks Davey, which goes badly for Jerry. Meanwhile, Molly is upstairs, oblivious to all that’s going on. Davey talks about using his telekinetic powers, which sometimes scares even him. Molly goes wandering in the woods and runs into Davey. She runs through and gets away, and Slausen comes up in his truck and picks her up. She’s saved!
Slausen recognizes Molly’s description and tells her that it was his brother. He goes inside, and the doll-man comes out. She shoots him, but he gets right back up – laughing that she shot him with blanks. She breaks his mask and sees that it’s really Slausen inside, but by now, she’s the only one surprised by this. He finally catches Molly.
Then, Jerry and Becky get loose, and the cat-and-mouse starts over again. Slausen picks up Becky, who doesn’t know the truth. The dummies come alive and the mechanical cowboys shoot at each other — and then at Becky. Finally, an Indian dummy throws a tomahawk into Becky’s head.
Slausen tells Molly that his real brother is actually dead. He admits that he killed the brother and his own wife, who were having an affair. Jerry breaks in to rescue Molly, but Slausen turns Jerry into a mannequin. As Slausen/Davey dances with his dummy-wife who appears to turn back into a real woman, other dummies close in, and Molly gets him with an ax while he’s distracted. The movie closes with her driving madly away with her now-changed-to-mannequin friends in the car with her.
Commentary
The “plaster” used here in the murder scene looks a lot more like bread dough.
The reveal of Slausen/Davey isn’t that big of a surprise, since his voice barely changes and one or the other is always offscreen when the other is there.
It’s longer than it needs to be, and some of the running around out in the woods could have been cut. Still, Chuck Connors is good and creepy here, the rest of the cast is solid, and all the dummies are really cool too.