September 8, 2018
Written by: Lawrence J. Block
Starring: Elizabeth Berridge, Shawn Carson, Jeanne Austin
Quote: "The Lord works in mysterious ways, little lady. He ain't such a bad fella. My son does get himself in all sorts of trouble, though, don't he? Anyway, blood is thicker than water. I'm sure he's gonna be a real comfort to me in my old age. Now, how many people know you're here?"
Trivia: Dean R. Koontz wrote a novelization of the screenplay under the pseudonym Owen West. The book contains a lot of backstory added by Koontz. Because of this, and the fact that the book was released before the movie due to a delay in post production, it is often mistaken that the movie is based on the book, but the book is in fact based on the movie.
The Ken Theater, the local independent one screen theater here in San Diego is showing a midnight showing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and to get me in the spirit, today's movie is another of Tobe Hooper's films that I have not seen yet: The Funhouse. This movie has a lot going for it and deserves to be up there with some of those other classic carnival movies: Freaks, Carnival of Souls, and Killer Klown from Outer Space (a damn classic if there ever was one!). It has some really great characters, some great killings, a really frightening villain, and the carnival setting of the film lends itself to the off kilter feeling of the film. The movie takes a lot of time to really get going but is definitely worth the wait.
The Funhouse begins with a masked man stabbing a showering teenager. It turns it is just the brother playing a prank and the teenage girl, Amy, threatens to get even with him. Don't get too excited about this, because they never see each other again in the film, which is disappointing and confusing. Amy's father tells her not to go to the carnival but she does so anyways with her asshole boyfriend Buzz and their two dumb friends. The spend the next forty five minutes smoking pot and harassing carnival works while Buzz acts like he's a bad ass. On a dare, they all decide to spend the night in the funhouse where they witness a disfigured man in a Frankenstein mask named Gunther get a hand job from the fortune teller and then kill her. The carnival boss/disfigured Frankenstein guy's father discovers that the kids witnessed the murder and stole from the carnival so the rest of the film turns into a survival film where they need to escape Gunther and the Carnie Boss. You can guess the rest... they're killed one by one until only Amy survives.
As I said before, it takes quite a bit of time to get to the killings. Almost the entire first hour is devoted to developing the carnival atmosphere of the setting. It is clear that this place is sleazy and things might not be on the "up and up." One of the dumb kids is hung and then placed on the funhouse ride to scare the others when they see his corpse make the continual loop. Another kid gets her head obliterated when Gunther shoves it through an industrial fan. And during the finale boss battle it takes place below the funhouse in an area that is remarkably similar to Freddy's boiler room in Nightmare on Elm Street. The filmmakers utilize steam, sparks and mini-explosions in this industrial setting to highten the suspense and make the atmosphere so tense. The final death of Gunther has him smashed between two gears. Awesome!
The makeup on Gunther is very believable and gives him a truly horrific appearance with all the potential to be one of the classic horror villains. The music by John Beal and the orchestra hired also help to build the suspense. It is dramatic full of crescendos and heavy beats.
A couple other random thoughts: The dumb kid that stole the money is the one that is hung. As he is hung money falls from his pocket. I was wondering if this was a reference to Judas who killed himself (according to at least one of the Gospels) by hanging himself as the money fell from him. Also, the movie has the obligatory nude scenes, necessary for all 1980s horror flicks. In the first minutes we see a topless Amy who played Mozart's wife/girlfriend in Amadeus. Also, I like the idea that the deformed guy Gunther hid his deformities under a mask of a character famous for being a monster that the creator tried to hide. Irony.
While it is nowhere near the level of perfection of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's still a pretty damn fun movie.
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