Even with about 25% of the Tomb of Terrors box set to watch I can safely say The Traveler is the best thing in it. I kind of already knew that as it was one of the few films I had watched from it when I first purchased it many years ago along with another good film Soul of the Demon. The Traveler has some of the same deficiencies of other films in that set- an overlong length (almost 105 minutes), dodgy acting and very limited sets and production values. Where The Traveler differs is in having a fairly interesting and unique mysterious plot, an unsettling ambience, a good villain and some stunning low budget gore scenes.
The Traveler is played by a guy with a British accent and is easily the best actor here. The rest of the cast are kind of poor though not awful. A group of people end up trapped in a deteriorated house and he makes them vote on who he will brutally torture to death in front of them. His sinister motives have something to do with one of the women in the house who has a dark past. His true identity isn't too hard to figure out.
The true highlight of The Traveler is the utterly brutal and innovative torture/death scenes. I won't spoil them but it's as if Olaf Ittenbach moved to the US and decided to add a dose of pretentiousness to his gore-fests. The gore here isn't quite as plentiful as Olaf's movies but it has his nasty, brutal, mean-spirited feel like in Black Past or The Burning Moon. It's not the fun, party gore of Premutos. I won't spoil the gore scenes but they are both innovative and unflinching in their brutality. The best is saved for last in a truly harrowing, vile, brutal and reprehensible torture death. I adored it of course. The dude doing the gore effects here went on to a healthy career including some big budget films. The effects aren't top notch and vary in how convincing they are but the sheer brutality and innovation make them stand above countless low budget splatter-fests.
The Traveler isn't perfect- it is overlong with about 10 minutes of a couple driving around at the beginning and another 10 minutes or more of people exploring a decrepit house. Some of the drama feels very forced and the dialogue can be weak at times. Also, the story manages to be both confusing and obvious at the same time. The gore isn't relentless but the torture deaths are placed at a regular interval throughout so you don't go too long without carnage. There's even a nasty, bloody scene of the survivors trying to take out The Traveler with conventional means. Despite some downsides the upsides of The Traveler makes it not only the gem of the Tomb of Terrors box set but a gem of ultra-low budget splatter/horror cinema.