Review of The Funhouse (1981) by Jani M — 02 Sep 2009

Of "Death Proof," Tarantino said something to effect that the Slasher film is such a definite form, that if you divert from it a little bit, you're in the middle of deconstructing/dumping the whole thing. The Fun House makes an interesting case study of that theory. In this one, the teenagers actually follow the audience's advice and don't separate...like ducks in a barrel, as it turns out. The plot pacing goes into a sprint at the end, but most of this movie is virtuoso on a small-scale. It might turn some viewers off by leaving them wanting more.

Others might feel cheated by the fact that a third of the movie takes place in a funhouse ride, a claustrophobic mousetrap when we're used to having a whole neighborhood to play hide-and-seek with a slasher. But the musical score is a classic, the cinematography is impressive (with an unbelievable high crane shot over the entire carnival grounds that makes you fear for the safety of the cameraman), the editing is psychologically precise, and the production design could net over $100 million on Antiques Road Show. The automatons featured are ingenious works of art, a startling assortment of monsters, eerie creatures from popular myth and history and Norman-Rockwell caricatures gone grotesque.

The carnival, a menu of cheap and flashy thrills for the young and young-at-heart, is supposed to be the kind of entertainment people say movie audiences are looking for (in lieu of high art). But Hooper might be telling us that the old-time carnival attracted its audience by a phantasmagorical quality that the industrial Slasher product can't have, and good horror/monster movies can.