DVR Catch-Up -- The Funhouse (1981)

Here's one that has completely slid under my radar, something I should really be more ashamed of than I actually am. In some horror corridors, The Funhouse is hung on the wall as a fine piece of work. Don't ask me why, though because it's really nothing special. It's based around a nifty central idea (kids locked within a carnival's funhouse overnight with psycho killer sporting a badass Frankenstein mask and his dysfunctional "family") that never reaches its full potential. Or even halfway.



If you locked me in my room, strapped to my bed with only my laptop at hand and Microsoft Word open, and forced me to crank out a screenplay based around that premise, with only 24 hours to do so, my finished draft would surely slap the piss out of what The Funhouse is. A shame, really, because the film does pack scattered moments of effective atmosphere, namely during the latter portion, when the four doomed kids (being played by 35-year-old actors, of course) start meeting their fates.

Several of the necessary elements are in place: an amusement park full of the requisite sight gags and wax scare-givers; four dumbass teens who voluntarily "sleep over" inside a funhouse, rather than take their asses to a Quality Inn; a main villain rooted in a totally absurd suplot involving paid-for sex with a cougar gypsy lady that goes South once our Frankenstein-masked gruny prematurely shoots his ooze; and some rather cool creature effects by way of the killer's disfigured, bat-meets-Albert Einstein face. What else do you need for some crappy '80s horror fun? Apparently more. A tighter, less "freak locked in by deviant father figure." It turns into the horror equivalent of The Goonies in ways, with Sloth testing his Voorhees out a bit. Only there's no Chunk to be found here, or even Martha Plimpton.



I'm all for films that take their time rather than hurl out setpiece-after-gory-setpiece, but The Funhouse never gets to where I was hoping it'd go. What I got was poorly-done character development and an hour's worth of nothing-at-all happening. The final half hour is when some goodness kicks in, but even then said "goodness" isn't anything more than just that---good. Nothing to write home about. There's very little blood on screen, which is welcome, actually. Makes sense, when you consider that director Tobe Hooper's previous film was cinematic history's ultimate "virtually bloodless depsite popular/ignorant belief" film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now that's a flick that awesomely pulled off the carnage through implication over graphic indulgence. The same approach is used here, and it works. If only there was more of that subtle slaughter and mayhem, and less slowly-paced stalk-and-attack scenes.

The Funhouse is at its best when giant ventilation fans are used as props, oddly enough. The two best scenes have spinning blades to thank, the first being a nicely-done trick of having a loud vent fan drown out the main girl's cries for helps as her family walks through the outside carnival grounds. Second, a hump-session for our hideous monster that downgrades into murder and one hell of a back itch. Hands down the movie's best scene:



So much more could've been done with The Funhouse. Though, I am appreciative that the script didn't go for an obvious "room of wall-to-wall mirrors" sequence. The father/son relationship between the park's owner and the freak should've never left the screenplay's "first draft" phase. Should've stuck with a straightforward monster-with-no-backstory-on-the-loose approach, and delivered more treats along the lines of that above ventilation scene. Sure, it'd be just another '80s slasher flick in essence, but Hooper proves his skills when handling slasher scenarios here, however minimal. An entire flick for him to fully show and prove this gift for slash could've been something legit.

Not this shit.