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.
