Review of The Funhouse (1981) by Stuart K — 06 Feb 2015

Directed by Tobe Hooper, (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Salem's Lot (1979) and Lifeforce (1985)). This creepy horror film was offered to Hooper by Universal Pictures, Hooper was riding the crest of a wave of successful films, done on a low budget but making money and getting noticed.

While it owes a big debt of gratitude to horror films of old, it still has some genuine scares to hand thoughout. It begins when teenager Amy Harper (Elizabeth Berridge) and her new boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), along with her best friend Liz (Largo Woodruff) and her irresponsible boyfriend Richie (Miles Chapin) end up going to a travelling carnival, which has a lot of grotesque and weird attractions, including a strip show, a freak show with deformed animals and a fortune teller.

But things take a sinister turn when they go on a haunted house ride known as The Funhouse. Which is genuinely scary. The ride stops inside and the carnival closes for the night, inside they witness a weird deformed monster murder a woman, and the teenagers find themselves locked in the ride.

While it is a gruesom film with some nasty scares, it's quite tame compared to other horror films doing the rounds at that time, and this inexplicably ended up on the Video Nasty List over here, which shows how out of touch our government was.

But, Hooper relishes in the grotesque, and he was about to make Poltergeist (1982).