Feature Category: Features

With just one match of England’s World Cup campaign played at the time of writing, perhaps the biggest talking point outside of Tunisian attempts to drag Harry Kane into a spot of on-pitch wrestling came off the field of play when the much-rumoured trailer for Series 11 of Doctor Who failed to materialise at either half or full time during BBC Sport’s coverage from Volgograd.

Of course, anyone who saw last year’s men’s Wimbledon final will know Jodie Whittaker is no stranger to such things – the short scene confirming her casting was broadcast following Roger Federer’s win on Centre Court, a spectacle beyond even the machine mind of K-9 going by the events of The Stones Of Blood when he takes an instruction from the first incarnation of his mistress all too literally after she herself struggles with the most English of idioms spewed forth from the mouth of the man she’s been thrown together with by the White Guardian.

DOCTOR: Anyone for tennis?

ROMANA: Tennis?

DOCTOR: Yes, it’s an English expression. It means, is anyone coming outdoors to get soaked?

For her part, she knows nothing of the solid thwack of racquet on ball. Nor will the tin dog soon enough! “Forget. Erase memory banks concerning tennis. Memory erased.” The whole business, though, does raise a fair few questions. Firstly, when are we actually going to get a trailer? Secondly, would splicing a trailer into the coverage of the Three Lions really have been such a bad idea?

Consider the facts. Viewing figures released in the aftermath of the nervy 2-1 win for Gareth Southgate’s men suggest an average 13.7 million people fought the urge to put their feet through the screen and/or watched through their hands. Particularly as Kyle Walker’s elbow made contact with Fakhredine Ben Youssef and the resulting penalty was tucked away to make it all square, when it had earlier seemed there could only be one winner…

If we cross the pond just for a second we also have perhaps the most convincing argument for such a placement. Swapping the round ball for one of a more oval variety, the traditional NFL season finale- to use a spot of American telly parlance-brings with it a chance for the enterprising television network or film studio to muscle in on the popularity of the Super Bowl with the wider viewing public of the land of the free and home of the brave.

Trailers for several of the bigger cinematic and televisual releases, some of which went on to be reviewed in these hallowed pages, formed part of the spectacle as the Philadelphia Eagles stunned the New England Patriots 41-33 in this year’s showpiece, the most recent example of a long and productive relationship between the medium and one of the highlights of the US sporting calendar.

In light of which it seems almost an oversight to think that we got nothing of the sort during any similar event on these shores pre-Whittaker at Wimbledon. Not even a sniff of Who as an England then led by Steve McClaren kicked off 2006’s World Cup in Germany with a 1-0 win over Paraguay, part two of the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit doubleheader getting underway after a Carlos Gamarra own goal ensured a decent start for the Wally with the Brolly (as he was later dubbed by the tabloids) in the hottest seat in the country.

Fast forward to 2010 and we’d actually get a Doctor with aspirations of playing the beautiful game himself- on a far grander stage than Sunday League for the Kings’ Arms. Only a back injury stopped Matt Smith from pursuing the beautiful game as a career, though it took a Desert Island Discs appearance for him to really open up.

“It was a tough time because I just felt unfulfilled, to be honest, I felt like I was so certain that that is what I was going to do. Fortuitously there was a drama teacher, Terry Hardingham, who said, ‘you were never meant to be a footballer, I always thought you were really great at acting’.”

He was, he later confirmed, also banned from taking part in a weekly kickabout for cast and crew in case he injured himself! ‘I’d love to play football now. Everyone at work plays on Tuesdays, but they won’t let me. I guess it’s the insurance companies and, realistically, if I turn my ankle over and we can’t shoot, then we’re screwed, aren’t we? You just can’t. It’s a small price to pay.’

Unless you count a solid 90 minutes alongside Craig Owens?

DOCTOR: Pub league. A drinking competition?

CRAIG: No, football. Play football.

DOCTOR: Football. Football. Yes, blokes play football. I’m good at football, I think.

Wearing the number 11 shirt he goes on to prove that indeed he is – BBC Sport tying in a special mini-episode of Football Focus as part of Doctor Who Confidential showing highlights of a win over the Rising Sun.

Though we never see the outcome of the following weekend’s game with the Crown and Anchor. Perhaps Smith and everyone else involved had one eye on preserving themselves for the bigger match on the Tuesday?

Or simply like most of the rest of the country wanted to nurse a pint and watch another English World Cup campaign get underway in South Africa with a 1-1 draw against the United States following a goalkeeping blunder by Robert Green over on ITV, kick off immediately following the final whistle of the Kings Arms match.

Disappointing perhaps, but better overall than the previous such meeting between the two in Brazil in 1950, a then part-time US team beating the Three Lions 1-0 well before their country’s turn to host the tournament and a Diana Ross missed penalty during the opening ceremony.

And yes, you did read that right! Whether the BBC will be left with its head in its hands ruing the missed opportunity to get a little more exposure for our newest Doctor minus of course the spot kicks (though Jodie doing a Diana might have been a more entertaining spectacle in itself than what we got instead, a 5-0 Russian whitewash of poor hapless Saudi Arabia) remains to be seen in lieu of an actual preview – but for now, they think it’s all over…

Hitting the Horror channel is the sublime flick Radius, and let’s say from the very off that what it lacks in budget, it makes up for in concepts and twists that’ll leave you feeling like you’ve been sack-tapped by Le Chiffre. The film is the second collaboration for directing duo Steeve Léonard and Caroline Labrèche – the latter of whom also takes on head writing duties. Since little can be found regarding the pairs previous credits, Radius can surely be classed as the cinematic birth of these two very talented folks.

Radius was premiered in July last year at the Fantasia film festival where it garnered critical acclaim and an award, before going on to show at further fests and continuing its gong-winning streak at places such as FrightFest. The premise of the film was reputedly the bolting together of two very separate ideas, one previously seen on screen and the other from a comic book. To cite the two sources would be to blow open the meatier elements of the plot, so we’ll just leave you to decide what they were after you’ve seen it.

That’s not to say the film is derivative or at all unoriginal; far from it. It takes a very simple notion and pulls at it until it nearly snaps. In the finest tradition of high concept ideas, you are left constantly asking ‘what if it were me?’ and the perennial pub favourite ‘would I use that power for good or evil?’ Answer: you can’t use it for good.

We need to decide whether this is horror in the truest sense, or merely (for want of a better expression) horrific. The deaths, while plentiful, are never more than the whiting of eyes and a flop to the floor like a shopping bag full of shit. And yet, while we say ‘nevermore’, the effect is so simple in its execution that it makes each death all the more powerful, laying out quite how short and ineffectual a life can be. Nihilism at its very bleakest. There are no bombastic explosions, just cars sliding off the road, another corpse found at the wheel. Coffee shops are filled with punters slumped over their still warm coffee and streets are littered with people caught in the middle of everyday life before summarily losing it with the click of a finger. It is this that places the film squarely in the jaws of horror rather than teetering on the harder edge of a horrific thriller.

The look of the film would seem to owe a lot to The Walking Dead, but don’t let that great show’s deathly drop (and perhaps demise?) let you think that the comparison is in any way an insult. The locales are reminiscent of TWD, as is the grainy effect on the film stock, though one suspects this is an artistic choice rather through conversion of celluloid to digital. The lighting hits the mark; nothing is too dark, or too light in a way that would give a feeling of the artificial. It’s that wonderful sweet spot, and like good editing, you simply don’t notice it. Speaking of the editing, handled by one of the directors, the pace trips along nicely, giving time where needed and skipping past what could have been the slower parts.

The cast is minimal, with the two leads doing most of the heavy lifting. One notable exception to this is the policewoman appearing near to the beginning of the film played by Alicia Johnston. Her two scenes end almost heartbreakingly and add a sense of the real to the whole piece. And as for that tone, this is a serious film; don’t expect any laughs or levity to lighten the mood. It starts dark and ends darkest. Dark in a good way, though, like what the term meant before Christopher Nolan stamped his boot into it, chewed it up and spat it out repeatedly.

You’ll have seen Diego Klattenhoff in something before, having Pacific Rim, After Earth, and Homeland to his name. Klattenhoff plays Liam, who starts the film as an amnesiac in an overturned car, and nails the performance. By far the strongest thing in a cast of very strong actors, it’s a shame we don’t see him in more or at least in bigger parts when we do get to see him. He does brooding without being all frowns and forehead and brings a touch of Michael C. Hall in looks and demeanour.

Klattenhoff (we like saying his name) is joined by Charlotte Sullivan as Jane (prizes for guessing what her surname might be, answers on a postcard please). Sullivan is something of a veteran when it comes to fire/police department based US TV shows, with her only real genre effort being an episode of Goosebumps way back in the olden days (1996). Sullivan’s’ Jane also starts amnesiac and if we are honest, a little bit weak. Thankfully, this subsides after the first ten minutes and while her dialogue is often relegated to plot exposition, the actor quickly stands shoulder to shoulder with her co-star. That plot exposition, it has to be said, is deftly done. There are intricate little nuggets of information that really do pay off, even as insignificant as they may seem, a line about pizza, in particular, being a good example.

So after all that teasing, let’s take a gander at the plot. The central premise of the film is explored very early on, so that’s safe to mention, but there are a couple of real curveballs thrown in that we will do our best to avoid.

Radius opens with that massively overused shot of an eye opening before the camera pulls back to reveal a rather battered and bruised Liam, having flipped his car on the outskirts of a small town. Bumbling his way into town, He is nearly run over by a car nonchalantly sliding off the road and crashing down the embankment. Inside the car, Liam discovers a young woman, her eyes whited out as though she’s spent the night tooting on the good stuff. Realising he has lost his memories, our man checks his wallet to discover his name is Liam Hartwell and starts to wend his merry way home. Entering a coffee shop he passes, Liam discovers all the punters are dead and begins to suspect this is all the result of some airborne virus.

At this point, there comes a couple of flora based shots that make your stomach lurch into The Happening territory. Fear not, for it ain’t the trees wot killed ‘em. This must have been a purposeful nod on the part of the filmmakers, it is just too knowing for it to have been happenstance. Liam makes it home and begins taping up the windows, handkerchief to his mouth as he goes, trying to piece together who he might be from the artefacts around his home. Sometime later, a farmer approaches Liam’s home and promptly drops dead.

It is here that we learn one half of the films’ central idea. Anyone who gets within a certain range of Liam drops dead. Having worked this out, he ensconces himself in the shed for a bit of bourbon-based thinking time.

Our other amnesiac, Jane, comes to find Liam at his home, finds him in the shed and explains that (shock!) she was with him in the car crash. What’s surprising about this is that she seems to be able to approach him without popping her clogs. Saying nothing of the deaths, Liam presses Jane on what she knows about the crash, which, as we’re sure you’ve guessed, is precious little. The pair goes off to investigate the crash site.

It is here that they discover a charred circle and work out that having been thrown from the car, they both landed on opposite sides of said circle. Using a poor unsuspecting pigeon, Liam demonstrates his theory to Jane, that it is his proximity that causes death. What did the poor pigeon do to deserve that? Flying-Rat lovers beware, there is a lot of birdicide (not a real word), which perhaps belies a hatred for our winged friends on the part of the scriptwriter?

Jane freaks out, as you would, and starts to walk off. A passing cop see’s the altercation and stops to ask if they are ok. Jane continues to walk away and the policewoman hits the dirt. It is now that the pair realises that, for some reason, Janes proximity to Liam stops the death effect he emits.

To continue further would really spoil the rest of the film. With one simple conceit, the movie layers up questions and themes with a nuance lacking in so many other flicks, let alone a ‘horror’ film. We use the word horror there in annoyed reference to the way most mainstream critics view horror, as nothing more sadomasochistic slashers, unable to make us think. Scantily clad girls running down corridors or leering bogeymen in the shadows. A medium for titillation, rather than insight to the human condition. Radius does make us think.

A good chunk of the first part of the film essays what it would be like to be stuck with a stranger, possibly for life, and the consequences of being pulled apart. It posits the notion of meeting, falling in love and knowing that no matter how south the relationship goes, you can absolutely never part. A couple of nights in the spare room maybe, but when separation causes the deaths of hundreds and possibly thousands, divorce would simply not be an option. It’s a bleak view, sure, but in its own way it asks us a question many of us would fear to entertain ‘what if I do stop loving you?’ That’s not to say there is a romance between the pair, but the allegory in their plight is plain as day.

Throughout, there are flashbacks and some flash-forwards; this is, after all, a film about discovering the secrets of the past. But in no way are these ever obvious or trite, instead, they give the often missing sense of what it must be like to pick up the pieces; to work out who you were and more importantly, what you were. This involves rediscovering relationships lost to the characters; relationships still very much in the moment to the loved ones they find along the way.

It’s safe to say that Radius keeps one guessing all the way, but there are answers and a very definite ending. Some twists are obvious, some very much less so. Around the start of act three, the pieces start to fall into place and with that comes the realisation that the proximity/radius/MacGuffin is exactly that – a MacGuffin. You’ll reach the end of the movie slack-jawed, having had the rug pulled firmly from under your edge of the seat placed buttocks, and for the realisation that Radius is much more than a horror thriller. It is about people, it is about life.

While it is a wonder to live in a time when horror is finally getting the true mainstream critical appraisal it deserves, that appraisal still seems reserved for the bigger budget Cineplex stompers. Little is said of the smaller guys trying to dip their toe in the pool. Those guys are still left to champion their work at film festivals around the world, spending their own hard earned cash pushing these little, but by no means lesser, works of art. It is not hyperbole to use that phrase in the case of Radius. Catch it on the telly box when it’s on. Then make someone’s day by tweeting the makers and telling them just how damn fine it is (tell ‘em STARBURST sent you).

Radius deserves to be seen by as many people as it can. It is that rarest of things: thought-provoking popcorn fun that will leave you blindsided; like getting a wet kipper to the kisser. And, oh boy, what an ending.

Make sure within fifty feet of Horror Channel when RADIUS screens on June 26th. Sky 317, Freeview 70, Virgin 149, Freesat 138.

Hollywood draws inspiration from everywhere – true stories, bestselling novels, mythology and, of course, video games. We’ve seen Angelina Jolie take on the role of sultry tomb raider Lara Croft, we’ve seen Jack Gyllenhaal star in the Prince of Persia, and not too long ago we saw Duncan Jones adapt World of Warcraft for the cinema.

In other words, there’s no shortage of movie adaptations of popular video games. But what can be said for the reverse? No, we’re not referring to movies themes in arcade machine games or various types of online casino slots. We’re talking about those times when video game studios team up with Hollywood to deliver a title that successfully combines great gameplay elements with a recreation of the stylistic atmosphere which saw the movie franchise succeed.

Well, there’s a good deal of those too – and you’ve probably been playing a bunch of them since your childhood. Here’s our round-up of the top video game adaptations of movies!

Alien

The Alien franchise has spawned (pun intended) a number of memorable video games over the years. From the arcade shooters in the 90s to the nerve-wracking terror of Alien: Isolation in 2014, the games are characterised by the same eerie atmosphere as the movies. With the incorporation of the Predator franchise, there have also been a number of Alien vs. Predator video games which achieved success upon release – particularly the first one in 2010 which was available for both Xbox and PS3. However the aforementioned Alien: Isolation was perhaps the first Alien game with such a huge focus on stealth, as opposed to combat, as a survival technique. The game expertly incorporated a great number of themes from the films and sees you play as the daughter of Ellen Ripley. The clever use of sound and echoes on board the spaceship goes a long way in creating tense vibes. This is a game that will have you playing with the lights switched on.

Indiana Jones

Arguably there have not been as many memorable Indiana Jones video games compared to some other franchises – but there are nonetheless a few titles that stand out, some of which gained something of a cult audience as opposed to wide mainstream success. The Lego Indiana Jones game will induce great nostalgia for a lot of gamers, however the most critically acclaimed of titles were the older games from the 90s. The Fate of Atlantis from 1992 is perhaps the most well-received video game from the franchise and remains a gem to this day. The point-and-click adventure game still holds out and has overwhelmingly positive reviews from most major game critics.

Star Wars

The Star Wars universe has, unsurprisingly, inspired a massive number of video games. There have been so many incredible games released over the last three decades that at least one Star Wars game is part of every gamer’s childhood. But the franchise has not just seen single game adaptations but game series – each of which having several different game titles. Some of the most popular series include Jedi Knight, X-Wing, Force Unleashed, Battlefront and of course the Lego Star Wars games, which interestingly was the first Lego video game based on a movie and its success led to subsequent Lego video game adaptations.

It’s not surprising that Star Wars of all franchises has allowed for some of the most successful video games. The vast universe of the space fantasy has appealed to generations for its heroic and epic tales of good vs evil. Together with its fantasy elements and classic sci-fi motifs, Star Wars is simply the perfect recipe, not just blockbuster films but for video games too. It’s hard to pick only one title from the vast number of games, but perhaps the most memorable was Star Wars Battlefront 2 from 2005.

James Bond

For a great many of us, Bond video games made for the centerpiece of our childhood gaming experience. Released in 1997 on Nintendo 64, GoldenEye 007 is widely regarded as one of the best and most influential video games ever created. Many levels in the game were based on locations from the GoldenEye movie. It had a multiplayer mode which allowed for competitive split-screen play, and the game was therefore hugely popular as a game to enjoy with friends. In fact, it’s probably this social aspect of the game which most people remember so fondly, as it was one of the earliest examples of competitive couch gaming. This four-player split screen feature was consequently replicated in subsequent Bond games such as 007 Agent Under Fire in 2001.

Lord of the Rings

In 2006, The Battle for Middle Earth II was released, which was the sequel in an RTS video game series which received massive praise. It helped bring to life the universe we knew from the films and incorporated all of the major characters from the franchise. More recently, in 2014, Shadow of Mordor was released which featured its unique nemesis system, where enemies would remember their encounters with you. The game was received very well and got exceptional feedback and is a must-play for any fans of Middle Earth.

So far, these are the movie franchises that come to mind in the context of video games – but there’s a lot of potential success on the horizon for the likes of Jurassic Park, with Jurassic World: Apatosaurus VR coming out later this year. Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity has also proven a hit franchise for VR with the spooky title Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul. With increasingly sophisticated virtual reality technology, it’s reasonable to think game developers might see great opportunities in bringing other cinematic worlds to life – perhaps allowing us to play alongside our favourite characters of the screen someday soon. In any case, it doesn’t look like the relationship between video games and Hollywood is likely to dwindle anytime soon.

The programme for this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival has been released, and as usual there is plenty on offer that will appeal to discerning genre fans such as your good selves. To save you from having to scour the website to look up details of every one of the scores of new films on offer, we have assembled a preview of those available that we think might interest you.

The UK premiere of Pixar’s summer release has been a staple of the festival for years, this year bringing us the family superheroics of Incredibles 2. You may have heard that the film’s general release has been pushed back a month because of some football tournament, so this will give you the earliest chance to see it. Another annual event is a screening of a seminal film accompanied by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra performing its score live, and this year comes the turn of the greatest shark move ever made, Jaws.

The festival’s self-explanatory Best of British strand has previously brought us the likes of the excellent My Pure Land and The Library Suicides. In Calibre, a pair of Edinburgh friends head up to the highlands for a weekend of deer hunting, only for an accident and its cover up leaving them facing a large group of gun-toting villagers, and since for the first time in years we appear to be missing a mental Japanese movie from the festival line up, perhaps this is continuing an alternative trend of ‘Deliverance with highlanders,’ although it won’t have to do much to top last year’s The Dark Mile in this regard. Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back) is a black comedy about a suicidal young man who keeps failing at the task and hires an aging hitman with a quota to meet to do the deed for him, only for the situation to get complicated when he meets the woman of his dreams after the arrangement has been made. In The Devil Outside, a teenage boy raised in evangelical Christianity and taught that evil lurks around every corner makes a new friend in the local rebel, and believes that a dead body in the woods in a sign from God. In In Darkness, a blind musician hears the murder of her upstairs neighbour, a war criminal’s daughter, and after the death is written off as a suicide she is gradually drawn into London’s criminal underworld. Mary Shelley tells the story of a teenage girl who falls for a charismatic and married poet, and the ensuing scandal and passions that she channels into the creation of the world’s most famous piece of gothic fiction, Frankenstein.

The American Dreams strand showcases the best of new US indie filmmaking. The Negotiator is an ‘80s-set espionage thriller where an alcoholic former diplomat is brought in to mediate when an old friend is kidnapped in Beirut, his buried past subsequently resurfacing. Papillon is a new adaptation of the famous novel set in a brutal French penal colony, where two inmates set their sights on freedom. Searching tells the story of a widowed father looking for his missing daughter, the film’s visuals all taken from screens within it, be they TVs, computer monitors, smartphones, or any and all devices in between. Terminal is a neo-noir assortment of interlocking plotlines circling a tale of revenge, variously featuring a pair of mismatched hitmen on an assignment, a teacher with an incurable illness and an eccentric train station janitor, all linked together by an enigmatic waitress leading a double life.

The Night Moves strand can always be relied on to provide some quality genre fare. Anna and the Apocalypse is a horror comedy musical where a teenage girl bands together with her friends to defeat an undead horde that invades on the night of the school Christmas concert. Blood Fest is a self-aware horror comedy where a group of teens must utilise their knowledge of horror movies to escape an influx of monsters when a horror festival turns real-life bloody. Period piece The Most Assassinated Woman in the World sees an actress at the Grand Guignol theatre become embroiled in a series of brutal murders. In psychosexual drama Piercing, a new father who develops a compulsion to kill his child decides to instead take it out on a call girl, who turns out to be more than a match for him. Possum sees a children’s puppeteer return home to face up to his stepfather, and also try to deal with the control the eponymous hand puppet has over him. In Solis, an astronaut trapped in an escape pod is caught in the gravitational pull of the sun, with only a weak connection to a mission control commander to hear his urgent pleas for help. In White Chamber the near-future UK is ravaged by civil war, and a woman awakes imprisoned in a high tech torture room and interrogated for information she claims not to have, it soon transpiring that all is not as it seems.

Some other new offerings to put on your radar include Zombillenium, an animated children’s film set in a theme park staffed by the undead, where its first ever human employee teams up with his new friends to stop the vampires from taking over; haunting drama The Secret of Marrowbone, where four British siblings escape their abusive father by travelling to America to live on their mother’s decaying family estate, where a presence may be lurking upstairs; and documentary Life After Flash, showcasing the career of Sam J Jones beyond his brush with stardom as the saviour of the universe.

A retrospective of mainstream American horror movies of the early to mid ‘80s brings us big screen showings of seminal werewolf outing The Howling, early slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street, zombie classic Day of the Dead and ghost story Poltergeist, while cult vampire flick Near Dark and post-nuclear survival tale Testament screen as part of a showcase of the decade’s female directors.

A selection of European classics includes M, where a child murderer stalking the streets of Berlin is hunted down by beggars and criminals; La Belle et la Bête, the first ever adaptation of Beauty and the Beast; The Seventh Seal, where a knight returning from the Crusades challenges Death to a chess match to forestall his demise while searching for meaning in his nihilistic existence; and Solaris, where a psychologist travels to a distant space station whose crew have been experiencing visions and hallucinations, only to realise a greater force is at work when he is visited by his dead wife.

For more filmgoing fun, in the weekend prior to the festival St Andrew Square garden is transformed into an open-air cinema, offering free screenings of a variety of blockbusters and family fare, which this year features Wonder Woman, Casablanca, Top Gun, The Incredibles, Paddington, Paddington 2, Big, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Moulin Rouge!, Thor: Ragnarok, Jason and the Argonauts, The Greatest Showman, Ghostbusters, Big Trouble in Little China, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Tickets for all films are now on sale, and can be bought from the festival website, where further information on each screening and their venues is also available. The festival itself begins on Wednesday 20th June and runs until Sunday 1st July.

The year was 1981.

Horror was dominating the cinema, mainly riding the wave of the stalk and slash craze of formulaic films that adhered closely to a predictable pattern of horny, hormone addled teenagers being slaughtered by masked maniacs, until only the one virtuous girl was left. Halloween 2, Friday the 13th Pt 2, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, Hell Night, Graduation Day… the list of slasher films released in that year goes on and on.

But among the slice and dice movies was one film that although different in tone and quality was undoubtedly part of the genre, it also paid a self-aware homage to the roots of the teenage hacking craze and made audiences a little wary of those travelling carnival attractions where, behind the brightly painted façade, something far nastier could be waiting. Welcome to The Funhouse.

Director Tobe Hooper had already made an indelible impression on the horror scene seven years earlier in 1974 with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. As a feature breakthrough, this was remarkable – a film so unrelentingly grim and terrifying, it was immediately deemed un-releasable in the UK and had only been seen in London. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre wouldn’t be officially seen in cinemas in this country until 1999.

Hooper had followed his success with Eaten Alive, also known as Horror Hotel and Death Trap. Call it what you will, it was also prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act and immediately removed from UK video shop shelves. It wasn’t until he directed the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot that British audiences could actually sit down and watch a Tobe Hooper feature without fearing the overzealous police coming knocking at their door.

Sadly, a blunder by the UK’s moral watchdogs also caused The Funhouse some problems. It was mistakenly, not to mention unsuccessfully, prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act. Overzealously, the film was seized from shelves having been mistaken for another film, The Last House on Dead End Street, which was released under an alternative title of The Fun House. Understandably, despite the matter being cleared up, and Hooper’s film being released legitimately, albeit with several seconds of cuts, most video store owners erred on the side of caution and removed the videotape from their shelves just in case. Those tapes were hard to come by for many years and like Hooper’s previous films in the time of the so-called video nasties, The Funhouse became the stuff of legend, spoken about by people who largely hadn’t seen it. Fortunately, in more enlightened times, The Funhouse has become easily available on DVD and on Blu-ray, so we can finally give this flawed little gem the appraisal it deserves.

The film hits the ground running from the opening sequence, which shows a teenage girl at home preparing for a shower. It’s obvious that we are seeing this from the point of view of a person watching her. We pick up a mask and put it on in a direct lift from the opening scene of Halloween, and we select a weapon – in this case obviously the weapon of choice is a knife. We then close in on our pretty young victim, who’s unaware of our presence and completely vulnerable. In a scene heavily reminiscent of the shower scene in Psycho, the shower curtain is pulled back, the girl screams and tries to defend herself vainly – but the blade plunges down toward her bare abdomen – and bends.

The victim is Amy Harper (Elizabeth Berridge), who is getting ready for her first date with a new boyfriend, and she has just been the target of the latest practical joke by her younger brother Joey (Shawn Carson). It has to be the latest in a long line of cruel pranks because he selected the rubber prop knife from an extensive selection of what seem to be torture implements on display on his bedroom wall. He’s a horror film fanatic, with his posters of Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange, but the collection of whips, flails and other sadistic torture devices on show should raise an eyebrow with his parents – who, while their daughter is screaming for her life in the shower, are downstairs watching The Bride of Frankenstein on TV taking no notice whatsoever of her terror.

When she recovers enough (and covers herself up) she follows Joey to his room and tells him threateningly that she will get even – plus she won’t even take him to the fair he’s been looking forward to. The brat looks shaken and later tries to sneak downstairs to watch the horror film but in a rare display of responsibility, his parents send him back to bed.

The father is concerned that Amy is going to the travelling fair, which they think has been implicated in some deaths at their previous stops. The mother is more concerned that her date is with a guy working at the local filling station. In a way, both are entirely right to be worried, because the evening will definitely be a bad one for poor Amy.

The new boyfriend, Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), is indeed an irresponsible idiot, and with another couple of similarly foolish peer, pressure-inducing friends, Richie (Miles Chapin) and Liz (Largo Woodruff), they’re soon on their way to the fair while smoking dope. To her credit, though, Amy has at least tried (but failed) to convince Buzz to take her to a movie instead.

In the meantime, Joey has decided to sneak out and follow his older sister to the fair, encountering a crazy redneck on the way who points a rifle at him for no apparent reason other than his own sadistic glee.

The fair is every bit as cheap, nasty, and gaudy as could be expected, and the four teens wander and explore the various attractions, which include a fortune teller, strip show, a magic act and a freak animal show including real deformed cattle. Oddly, but eerily effectively, three of the barkers who entice the customers into the tents are all played by the same actor (Kevin Conway) in different costumes.

All the while, Joey is watching the group and keeping out of sight.

As the evening draws to an end, the fair closes down – but Richie has come up with a plan to extend their fun evening. They will visit the funhouse, a large ghost train exhibit, hide and spend the night there. This will, of course, involve good girl Amy phoning home and telling a lie to her parents about staying over at Liz’s house.

Putting their plan into operation, they make their way to the funhouse, pay the attendant who is lumbering around wearing a Frankenstein monster mask and jump on board their cart then hop off mid-ride to enjoy their evening as young teen couples in horror movies tend to do. They’re disturbed by a noise in the basement below them – which is an inescapable gaping hole in the film’s plot. Bearing in mind that the fair is a travelling one, all the rides are portable and carried from venue to venue on trailer bearing trucks. The funhouse here seems vast, wide, high and labyrinthine rather than narrow and claustrophobic – and it also has a cellar.

Disturbed from their intimate activities, the teens investigate a light and voices coming from a room below them. Peering down through a grating, they see the funhouse ride attendant, still in his costume, negotiating a sleazy deal with Madame Zena the fortune teller (Sylvia Miles) who insists on a fee of $100 for her services as a prostitute. The deal goes sour when the attendant finishes prematurely and Zena refuses him a refund. In a rage, he strangles Zena, leaving her body on the makeshift bed while the teens, silently watching everything, begin to panic. Sadly, for all her assumed mystical powers, Zena didn’t see THAT coming.

Three of them try to escape but find themselves locked inside the attraction. However, Ritchie has his eyes on the cash in the strongbox that Zena’s fee was taken from, and takes his opportunity to sneak down and steal it before re-joining his friends.

Conrad, the funhouse barker, discovers Zena’s body and notices that the strongbox is now empty. Assuming the attendant took the money, he starts to beat him. The mask goes flying and his true face is revealed. He is largely bald, with long, thin white lanky hair. His skin is albino white and his eyes are bright red. His teeth are deformed, long fangs and he drools constantly. He is largely mute, emitting only guttural, grunting noises. His name is Gunther (Wayne Doba) and he is Conrad’s stepson. His frankly startling make-up and prosthetics are a highlight of the film and were created by Rick Baker, just before his incredible work on John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London.

Ritchie might well have got away with the theft, if it isn’t for the fact that in leaning over the grating while Conrad is confronting Gunther, his lighter falls out of his pocket and tumbles to the floor of the cellar and the chase is on. To make matters worse, not only do they have Conrad after them to eliminate any witnesses, but he has ignited a homicidal rage in Gunther.

Outside, in the deserted park, Joey has seen his sister enter the funhouse, but hasn’t seen her leave. He is surprised and understandably terrified when he stumbles across the now unmasked Gunther but is caught by two other fairground workers who call his parents to come and collect him. When they do, he remembers his sister’s threat to get even – and doesn’t tell them where she is. It’s implied he’s spitefully leaving her to her fate.

Despite arming themselves with props from the attraction, one by one, the victims fall prey to their stalking tormentors. Richie is first (deservedly) hung by his neck and mounted on one of the ride’s carts to terrify the remaining three. Liz falls through a trapdoor near an industrial vent and is at the mercy of Gunther. She tries to entice him, and he seems to succumb to her charms until she stabs him with a knife she’s holding. But this is a horror movie, Gunther is the monster, and he isn’t going to die that easily – he wrestles the knife away and stabs Liz to death.

Buzz and Amy try in vain to break out through one of the exit doors but are stopped by Conrad who has armed himself with a gun. The kids plead for their lives and ask why Conrad wants to kill them. He explains that he’s only protecting his stepson who had killed a couple of girls earlier in the season after they tried to seduce him. This, presumably, is the incident referred to earlier by Amy’s father.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Buzz tries to wrestle the gun away, but in the struggle, Conrad dies impaled on a sword. Gunther arrives and immediately attacks Buzz, who tries to shoot him while Amy tries to escape. Offscreen, Buzz fails and is himself shot, with his body being found seconds later, inexplicably as Amy was running away, unless she just ran a circle.

In the traditions of the genre, the lone, surviving ‘good girl’ has to have a final showdown with the killer in the final reel and so it happens here. Amy makes her way through the funhouse and its nightmarish props to a large maintenance area with industrial cooling fans (remember, this is still in the travelling fair) and Gunther, convinced of an easy last kill, follows her.

A crowbar is all she finds to defend herself with, but Gunther easily takes it away from her and begins to swing it, to land a devastating killing blow but succeeds only in electrocuting himself when he accidentally smashes the crowbar into a fuse box. That stuns him temporarily, but then he gets caught on the chain that pulls the carts through the ride. That slows him down, but not for long.

In a final lunge to get his victim, Gunther is dragged by the chains into two large gears that crush him to his ultimate death. The nightmare is finally over for Amy as she leaves the funhouse, meandering through the fairground as the workers begin to dismantle the rides ready for the next destination. Though how they’ll dismantle the funhouse and its basement and load it for the journey is anybody’s guess. Plus, poor Amy will have to explain the six dead bodies in there.

Despite its grim subject matter, the film overall is technically far better than Hooper’s previous outings with the director showing a finesse that was absent from both his earlier films but was beginning to manifest itself in Salem’s Lot. The camera work is elegant and nowhere near as crude as his earlier work.

By the time The Funhouse went into production, Hooper’s talent had already been spotted by Steven Spielberg, who was developing E.T: The Extra Terrestrial at the time. It wouldn’t be long until the two would collaborate on perhaps the greatest ghost house film of the eighties. But that’s a story for another time.

You can enter THE FUNHOUSE when it screens on Horror Channel on May 23rd. Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138.