Funhouse

Funhouse

Tobe Hooper remains to this day one of the most truly underrated of horror filmmakers which in some ways is understandable given his first initial effort. 1974’s original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre left an indelible mark on all of cinema for all time, an achievement in horror that no other filmmaker in the genre (not even Wes Craven who admittedly still had more classics in his career) could ever hope to match. But the effect on Hooper himself was even more profound as everything he would come up with in the years afterward (including a quality sequel in Chainsaw Part 2) nonetheless fell so far short from the high water mark that he had set in 1974 that it seemed that every time a new movie of his would come out he would be labeled as being a “has been” or would officially be declared by critics as being “done” (although nobody else could ever touch his masterwork either) and the one film of his that did become a huge hit (Poltergeist) was tainted by the perception that Executive Producer Steven Spielberg had more to do with the film’s success than he did. The truth was that (with the exception of the Chainsaw sequel) Hooper actually had other subjects that he wished to explore through his chosen field of horror movies and while many of his later movies obviously would pale in comparison, he still came up with a good number of minor horror classics that would weave their own magic in their own way including this 1981 release that would close the book forever on how to do an effective horror film within the setting of a traveling carnival. Indeed, Hooper would create an atmosphere here that was just so thick and pervasive of the sideshow environment that it in and of itself becomes the real star of the movie although the lead actress is the very appealing Elizabeth Berridge (who soon after would beautifully hold her own opposite acting heavyweights F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce as Mozart’s wife Constanze in Amadeus) playing the virginal heroine (who still goes topless in a number of scenes) who accompanies three friends (including a gas station employee with whom she’s on a first date with). Berridge actually LOOKS like a teenager in the role (something you don’t always see in horror films with these characters) and her best friend here is also very appealing even as their dates (the two male leads) are the kind of obnoxious assholes whom you can’t wait to see die. The gas station attendant is a muscular pretty boy with a tendency for telling long jokes that take over 5 minutes to get through and ultimately go nowhere while the other guy is one of the worst types, a preppy, gawky nerdo who still has the nerve to laugh at and tease those who are less fortunate than he (and is also a red handed thief on top of that). After lying to her dad about going to the movies instead of the carnival (apparently it’s been linked to murders / mysterious deaths in the past), Berridge and the others head on out to see the carnival in all of its glory and this is where Hooper becomes our personal tour guide in showing us this world and its people, a caravan of traveling performers and ride operators / crew members who literally go from town to town presenting the curious locals with cheap brands of entertainment in the form of an animal freakshow with sadly deformed critters, a stripper revue with nearly naked girls dancing around for any man over 21, and a low rent magic show featuring the carny magician (William Finley in a 5 minute cameo) staging a cornball magic trick in front of a roomful of hecklers. Then there is the actual funhouse of the title, an ominous by design looking structure that is actually of the ridethrough kind where patrons ride in the little kiddie cars with the big bar pulled down in front of you while all sorts of crazy puppets and sound effects come at you from all sides. Of course, some of us as kids are not ashamed to admit that when having entered an amusement park / carnival / boardwalk with rides environment that we would book right straight for the nearest haunted / fun house attraction, being extremely curious at what sort of creatures and scares (or attempts at such) might actually be waiting within its walls. Here Hooper upon showing the characters going in takes us into a mysterious (and cheap) inner sanctum where low end animatronic figures appear to be the main population along with the usual bits like sudden smoke blasts, strobe lights and random sound effects all presented to maximum impact despite their low budget roots by Hooper himself. It makes one recall how The Disney Parks would specialize in these very simple (but effective) attractions like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White’s Scary Adventure and of course The Holy Grail of these type of things in The Haunted Mansion. The key here is not in the funhouse ride itself but in the loading dock as a strange lumbering figure wearing a Boris Karloff Frankenstein mask is helping the patrons in, securing the handlebar and then pushing the cart along the track to get it going. Turns out that this guy in the mask is the son of the barker who runs the funhouse (Kevin Conway who in sporting different looks also plays the barker for the striptease and the animal freakshow suggesting a family connection at play) and is also horribly deformed, so much so that he more resembles an alien than a human (hence the mask). When Berridge and her friends come up with the bright idea of spending the night together in the funhouse just to see what kind of shits and giggles they can milk out of it, that’s where the trouble begins when they see the mutant son pay a decrepit old woman for sex, only for him to become violent upon prematurely finishing and murdering the hag in cold blood. When his father comes in and sees the corpse, he beats and berates his freak son before finally realizing that there are also four “trespassers” on his property which prompts him to set his son loose to hunt them down before any of them can escape. While the last half hour does become more or less your standard stalk and slash type of finale, there are a couple of extra elements that make it interesting, namely the idea that since the group is now locked inside the funhouse after closing and cannot simply just walk out, they are now trapped in its own freakish, grotesque “world” of creepy lifelike puppets, garish painting on the wall and (once the freak monster’s father turns the power back on inside to disorient them some more) intensely loud sound effects like thunder and wild lighting to the point that one might think that even the wobbly animatronics themselves might become a sudden threat. The other key element is in the freak monster himself (named Gunther). Since we have already seen this character attempt to do a straight up cash transaction in exchange for sex, this also means that the two main female characters (who are very appealing) don’t just have to worry about being killed by the creature but also being brutally raped as well (we’re even told that the past murders connected to the carnival had involved female “locals” who had sexually teased Gunther while he was steadfastly loading people on and off the ride). As for Gunther himself, even with his obvious resemblance to someone like Jason Voorhees without his hockey mask, he mostly comes off as being quite pitiful with his habit of constantly drooling, the beatings and abuse he takes from his father (it’s obvious that he could fight back but doesn’t) and his tendency to lower his guard when at least one of the females is shown as being willing to offer herself sexually to him as an obvious ploy to set him up. While very few horror movie experts are willing to offer him up as being one of the best horror villains ever (mostly because Conway as his father carries the acting load while Gunther is played by a genuine mime), he seems just right for this story and this scenario as he babbles on in halting grunts that only his father can understand (similar to Leatherface and Cook in Texas Chainsaw). The ending sees a return to the fast cut, surreal, subliminal editing as seen in Chainsaw making it appear that the heroine in surviving the ordeal might just lose her sanity in the process with the actual final shots offering a rather peaceful contrast compared to the mayhem brought on previously by Leatherface, but while Gunther doesn’t quite match up to that legendary standard, this remains a quality horror offering filled with creepy scares and an ambience that is second to none…

8/10

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