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The Funhouse (1981)

Dir: Tobe Hooper

Four friends go on a double date to a Carnival that has just arrived in town.
They are Amy (a pre “Amadeus” Elizabeth Berridge) her date Buzz (Cooper Huckabee) and Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Richie (Miles Chapin).

As they take in the sights Amy becomes unnerved at the Carnival Barkers, who all seem to look alike and eye her menacingly.
Foolishly deciding to stay the night in the “Funhouse” ride, the four friends soon discover there is more to this Carnival than meets the eye when they bump into a truly monstrous killer…

 

Hooper is one of the great disappointments of horror. After his truly outstanding debut with the iconic “A Texas Chainsaw Massacre” he did the very average “Death Trap/”Eaten Alive”, then bounced back a bit with a genuinely creepy TV adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”.
After this film, “The Funhouse”, he hit big with the excellent “Poltergeist”….but Speilberg’s involvement muddied the waters and Hooper almost faded away into the publicity background.
The very silly, if mildly enjoyable “Lifeforce” followed, but it was clear that Hooper had lost that razors edge intensity he had brought to the uncompromising “Texas Chainsaw”. The marginally enjoyable, much troubled “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” did nothing to change that view.
From then on it was down hill into some truly awful movies including some tame and lame made for TV clunkers.

“The Funhouse” kind of falls between these two stools of genius and all out crap.
Hooper opens with a fun “Psycho”/”Halloween” homage, that although obvious in it’s ‘false’ set up manages to deliver a very serious and emotionally intense denouement with Amy’s angry reaction. It also gives us a chance to enjoy the splendour that is Ms Berridge's bosom, that would reach it’s bountiful heights in the Directors Cut of the outstanding “Amadeus”…But I am going off topic here.

This interesting, if derivative, opening promises more than it delivers sadly.
Hooper gives us a nice carnival atmosphere with some interesting sights. But he takes much too long walking his characters around. Aside from the mysterious (and never fully explained, we have to suppose inbreeding. After all Hooper likes his twisted families) identical carnival staff there is nothing here to really grip the viewer with the feeling of impending doom.

The sub plot involving Amy’s Brother also holds things up and ultimately never comes to anything, despite the build up it is given.

None of the actors or characters stand out except for the lovely Berridge who here does a very good ‘screaming heroine’.
Her ‘facial’ acting certainly gets her fear and shock over to the audience better than a hundred cheesy screeches.
Veteran actress Sylvia Miles (“Midnight Cowboy”) has fun as the ageing fortuneteller who prostitutes on the side, but she is the only one of the carnival workers to hold any interest.
Kevin Conway as the many Barkers wastes the many chances to ham it up enjoyably and simply fades away in the background.
Wayne Doba (who was the annoying clown mime in the classic DePalma version of “Scarface”) is hidden under the wonderfully over the top, snot drooling, ‘monster’ makeup (designed by Rick Baker) but can do very little with such a solid mass of latex on his face, but he does manage to instil a tiny bit of sympathy for the twisted being that Mother Nature has chosen to shit upon big time.

By the time the first killing happens (after a surprisingly sleazy scene) Hooper has pushed the audiences limits of patience, and that it, and the following deaths, are so low key does nothing to bolster much interest.
He was rarely explicit in “Texas Chainsaw”, but all the deaths in that were drenched in stylish brutality. Here they are simply your typical ‘slasher'; kills only without any of the gore and violence.
Only the atmosphere, Berridge, and the crazy monster make-up manage to hold the viewers’ interest, and those that persevere will at least be rewarded with an effective finale showdown.
But overall this is tepid, badly paced, stuff with only a few interesting events and weird ‘monster’ to recommend a watch.

Surprisingly this was caught up in the ‘Video Nasties’ scare in the UK during the early 80’s. Despite it being a pretty tame film with a BBFC cinema certificate.
It was rumoured it was confused with the infamous Grindhouse oddity “Last House on Dead End Street”, which sported “Funhouse” as an alternative title. But “Dead End’s” obscurity and lack of UK release would make this unlikely…if marginally possible.