The Funhouse

Rating:
Summary: Pay to get in. PRAY to get out.
Review: "Thet boy just ain't right" If you've seen this movie, then you'll know what I mean. Lately, I've been collecting late 70's, early 80's horror movies and I came across The Funhouse (1981). Directed by Tobe Hooper, best know for 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I thought this movie would be fun and it was.

The movie is slow going for the first hour, and then things pick up from there. This provides a slow build up of the tension, which I enjoyed. Basically you have a small group of teenagers who decide to spend the night in a carnival funhouse, and most don't live to regret it. There are some thrilling/scary moments, but the movie is more low key than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The gore is very limited, and a lot of it is off screen, but as a choice of direction, I thought it was better that way, for this movie. The settings are very effective, using natural lighting in most scenes, giving the movie a gritty feel. The actors, I feel, did an effective job in portraying their characters, giving them a little more depth than what we used to in these types of movies. The one minor issue I had was I thought the monster make up might have been a little over the top, in that I thought it would have been more effective had it been toned down a notch. The monster, by the way, is the son of a carnival worker, and is very disfigured to the point of being grotesque. I am not giving away anything here, as we learn this about midpoint in the movie, and it's not a shocking revelations or anything.

While this movie shared many elements of other horror movies, teenagers, creepy location, psycho killer, it rises above it's peers somewhat in the gritty realism. Again, I want to stress that this movie is slow going through the first hour, but was worth it to me for the last half hour.

Rating:
Summary: Wacky, demented, twisted, sick and perfect for a Friday!
Review: What can I say about this wonderfully strange film. I think I may be the only person out of everyone I know that liked it! Am I weird or something! I just found the idea intriguing. It's essentially the same old "dead teenager" plot of the 80's, like every "Friday the 13th" flick but this movie is different. From the very start of the film you can tell it's different from the rest of the lot. The credits are creepy and a little eerie. John Beal's powerful haunting carnival score is one of the most brilliant scores I've heard. Then you notice a name in the credits. Directed by. . .Tobe Hooper. From this start, you know you're going to be in for a hell of a ride.

Similar to "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Eaten Alive", Tobe fully exploits the backwoods sick-o carnies. This is exactly the material that Tobe loves to wallow in. The one drawback to the film is that nothing REALLY happens until like an hour into the film. Tobe gets a little TOO preoccupied with showing off the strange reality of the carnival world.

The film is kind of scary and then also darkly funny, (I especially liked the addition of "Tad". . .Those who have seen the movie, know what I'm talking about).

Overall, it's a silly, sick, demented funride that you and your friends will love to watch on a boring Friday night. Do a little MST3K commentary to it, order a pizza and have fun with it.

Rating:
Summary: STOP BEING A HORROR MOVIE SNOB
Review: You know, all i ever hear about is how great a director Tobe Hooper is. Then the same people that regergitate this line over and over turn around and say, well Eaten alive was crap, the funhouse was crap, on and on and on..... Don't listen to the mindless horror snobs who would have you belive that if its not "Texas Massacre" its worthless. These people have pigeon-holed every horror movie into being something else. If a zombie movie isnt "Dawn of the Dead", its crap. Dont get me wrong, im not doubting these people's devotion to the greatest genre in existence. I'm just saying, there will never be another dawn of the dead, texas chainsaw massacre (I know these movies have been remade, but you know what i'm saying) For the love of god, GET OVER THEM AND DONT KNOCK EVERYTHING ELSE FOR STUPID REASONS! JUST ENJOY HORROR! This is an awesome movie, and as the other reviews say, the funhouse lighting is awesome. Only 4 stars because not enough gore for me. Still a good amount though.

Rating:
Summary: Funhouse good enough for a rainy day...
Review: After having met bloodily sweet success with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Salem's Lot", and before teaming up with Steven Spielberg the following year for the electrifying "Poltergeist", horror conoseiur Tobe Hooper decided to take a backseat heading up a cast of unknowns to procure "The Funhouse." This 1981 low-budget terror-train from Universal tells the tale of four teenage delinquents who try to have a night-on-the-town when a travelling carnival comes to their 'burb. And for kicks, they decide that it would be cool if they stayed after-hours inside the park's funhouse. However, the obnoxious adolescents don't realize that the barker of this attraction and his monstrously grotesque son (who finds sanctuary wearing an equally-ugly Frankenstein mask) have been implicated in a number of grisly murders that have occurred wherever this carnival has travelled to. While hiding in the spookily-clad funhouse, the kids witness the son expunging the life of one of the female carnies (Sylvia Myles) when she refuses his amorous advances, and they spend the remainder of the flick trying to evade the demented barker's clan and get help. However, the brood soon discovers the invading kids' presence and eliminates the kids one-by-one with various booby traps inside the terrifying house until one girl (Elizabeth Berridge) is left to contend with the son after his pop was killed by her late boyfriend. It all finishes when this girl is able to lure the son down into the house's mechanical underworkings, and the son eventually is horribly extinguished from being crushed between a gear assembly (not to mentioned being briefly electrocuted beforehand when he strikes an electrical access panel with a crowbar in an attempt to attack the girl). She manages to come out alive and would need psychotherapy for years to come!

"The Funhouse" is a decent horror film for a rainy day. It does have the look and feel of the pioneering slasher films of the late 70's/early 80's with a trite, weak-fabric teen-movie plot, but I give it credit for the ominously dark and eeire funhouse sets & props to assist with the audience's mood. However, I must admonish everyone that this flick is terribly boring for about the first 40 min. Tobe Hooper, at times, paid too much attention to the carnival's seedy and overly-glittered attractions and hooligans and almost completely belittled his "stoned" protagonists' character developments. Ending is pretty cool, even though it may be rather predictable for some first-timers.

Also, check out Elizabeth Berridge as Mozart's fiancee in the Oscar-winner "Amadeus."

Rating:
Summary: There are no jokes in this funhouse . . .
Review: To begin, Tobe Hooper is one of my all-time favourite horror movie directors. From his raw debut shocker THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE to the Spielberg-friendly spookfest POLTERGEIST, Hooper has always managed to raise a fanboy warmth in my heart when one of his new movies is released. THE FUNHOUSE is a minor work in his canon, which benefits from great make-up effects from Craig Reardon/Rick Baker and Hoopers' own strong visual directorial style. The actual script is pretty lame, with four teenagers sneaking into a funhouse for an aftershow scare. They are quickly dispatched by a deformed creature in the most routinest of fashions.

The scares are handled well and the excellently spooky cinematography benefits the look and feel of the production. The movie itself echoes an older style of horror film that at that time (the early to mid 80s) seemed to be unfashionable as movie theatres were littered with the likes of FRIDAY THE 13th and the next splatter epic that could outdo the last (I'm not saying that was a bad thing in itself, as Hooper himself returned to gory horror with his own underrated TEXAS CHAINSAW sequel). The cast provide the usual teen-kill fodder, and the main villain (a strange but interesting make-up creation) is always good to look at in this atmospheric chiller that falls short of Hoopers' other work but in itself is an entertaining horror flick that delivers the spooky goods even if a chainsaw isn't involved . . .

Rating:
Summary: movie was so dumb it didnt scare me
Review: when i first seen this movie i thought it be scary but it turned out to be one of the most boring horror movies i seen so far. i seen alot of scary movies but i dont know which is worse. the storyline was really boring and i thought it didnt have enough scares in this one.

Rating:
Summary: Funhouse good enough for a rainy day...
Review: After having met bloodily sweet success with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Salem's Lot", and before teaming up with Steven Spielberg the following year for the electrifying "Poltergeist", horror conoseiur Tobe Hooper decided to take a backseat heading up a cast of unknowns to procure "The Funhouse." This 1981 low-budget terror-train from Universal tells the tale of four teenage delinquents who try to have a night-on-the-town when a travelling carnival comes to their 'burb. And for kicks, they decide that it would be cool if they stayed after-hours inside the park's funhouse. However, the obnoxious adolescents don't realize that the barker of this attraction and his monstrously grotesque son (who finds sanctuary wearing an equally-ugly Frankenstein mask) have been implicated in a number of grisly murders that have occurred wherever this carnival has travelled to. While hiding in the spookily-clad funhouse, the kids witness the son expunging the life of one of the female carnies (Sylvia Myles) when she refuses his amorous advances, and they spend the remainder of the flick trying to evade the demented barker's clan and get help. However, the brood soon discovers the invading kids' presence and eliminates the kids one-by-one with various booby traps inside the terrifying house until one girl (Elizabeth Berridge) is left to contend with the son after his pop was killed by her late boyfriend. It all finishes when this girl is able to lure the son down into the house's mechanical underworkings, and the son eventually is horribly extinguished from being crushed between a gear assembly (not to mentioned being briefly electrocuted beforehand when he strikes an electrical access panel with a crowbar in an attempt to attack the girl). She manages to come out alive and would need psychotherapy for years to come!

"The Funhouse" is a decent horror film for a rainy day. It does have the look and feel of the pioneering slasher films of the late 70's/early 80's with a trite, weak-fabric teen-movie plot, but I give it credit for the ominously dark and eeire funhouse sets & props to assist with the audience's mood. However, I must admonish everyone that this flick is terribly boring for about the first 40 min. Tobe Hooper, at times, paid too much attention to the carnival's seedy and overly-glittered attractions and hooligans and almost completely belittled his "stoned" protagonists' character developments. Ending is pretty cool, even though it may be rather predictable for some first-timers.

Also, check out Elizabeth Berridge as Mozart's fiancee in the Oscar-winner "Amadeus."

Rating:
Summary: Fun
Review: No, it's certainly not art and didn't really win over fans of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but Hooper's Funhouse is worth visiting. If Scream-era flicks are your bag, then you'll pass this off as "Stupid" and "boring", but if you love 80s slasher flicks and drive-in exploitation, then you can't go wrong. Yeah, it's a slasher film, it's a little slow, and isn't full of pulse pounding terror. Tobe Hooper's reputation certainly proceeds him, so it's difficult to go into this without premature comparisons to Texas Chainsaw and Poltergeist. The fact of the matter is that this film isn't as good as either of those films, but the world is a better place because of The Funhouse.

Rating:
Summary: "Pay to get in, Pray to get out"
Review: From director Tobe Hooper, this movie does not live up to the reputation of a director who put out such great films a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist, and Salem's Lot.Not even worth one star. Though i'll say "Hooray for Effort." A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. I'm a long time horror fan and was absolutely disgusted by this movie. It was one of those you beg to end. Now, trusting Tobe Hooper, i got this, i've never been so disappointed in a movie, except pehaps the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Don't make the same mistake i did. Not a good story, and lacks any real talent.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully creepy!
Review: The set of this movie is the carnival. Nearly all the lighting is natural, which means it comes from the lights at the carnival and the atmosphere in which it was shot.

This is a creepy and fun movie based upon the novel of the same name.

Highly recommended.