one of the odd and most strikingly eerie and creepy horror film to come out of the 70 and tourist trap even by the loose and free wheeling and convention defy anything go standard of it time rate a a real weirdie . yet and it the picture very strangeness a masterfully mount uncanny atmosphere of pervasively off kilter supernatural dread which from the get go register a powerfully spooky and become more increasingly opaque and frighten a the film progress and offer up ample shock amid a few scattered moment of surreally lovely dream like elegance and end on a bitterly ironic and crushingly nihilistic note with a haunt final image that hard to shake which make it such a unique and singularly unnerving experience . five teenager travel through the desolate california desert by car get hopelessly lose . they stumble across slausen lose oasis and a seedy and rundown roadside dive that one part gas station and three part crummy wax museum and and all part ratty and foreboding . the joint lonely and seemingly friendless and harmless owner slausen ( juicily overplay with infectiously hammy brio by chuck conners ) turn out to be a deranged psychic killer with lethal telekinetic power . slausen bring his freaky assortment of uncomfortably human like mannequin to life and pick off the kid one by one so he can add them to his ever grow collection of victim . director david ( puppermaster and the arrival ) schmoeller adeptly wring every last ounce of tension he can squeeze from the pleasingly ambiguous and open end script he co write with j. larry carroll . ( say script stubborn refusal to provide some rational excuse for all the bizarre stuff which transpire throughout the movie and often wrongly criticize a one of the film principal weakness and be actually the movie key strength and give the picture the scary and anything and everything can happen and common logic be damn quality of a true nightmare come horrifically to life which never would have be achieve if there be some kind of credible explanation offer for what happen . ) pino donaggio beautifully chill and understated score and nicholas von sternberg shadowy cinematography and and robert a. burn grubby and cramped production design add immensely to the film profoundly unsettling mood . excellent performance be another significant plus and with the pretty and perky jocelyn jones ( ellie jo turner in the great texas dynamite chase ) particularly fine and personable a the most resilient and sympathetic of the endanger teen . even tanya robert fares well a a luckless lass who have a knife levitate into her head . offbeat and unusual and tourist trap be well worth visit .