October Edition #23: THE FUNHOUSE

 

Director: Tobe Hooper
Screenplay: Lawrence Block
Starring: Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Largo Woodruff, Miles Chapin, Kevin Conway
Release Date: 1981


THE FUNHOUSE begins with a direct homage to John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, following the point of view of an anonymous heavy breather as he stalks through what looks like the bedroom of a young boy, the walls plastered with posters of Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man and other classic Universal monsters. We follow him as he puts on a clown mask, grabs a large knife off of the wall, and proceeds into the bathroom where Amy (Berridge) is showering in preparation for a big date with her new boyfriend Buzz (Huckabee), and her friends Liz (Woodruff) and Richie (Chapin). They plan to drive around, smoke a lot of weed and check out the carnival that has just rolled into town. After a nudity-filled attack sequence it is quickly revealed that the knife is rubber, and the POV we’ve been following is that of her little brother, Joey. Amy, understandably upset, chastises her brother, refusing to take him with her to the carnival that their parents have forbidden them from attending, and vowing to get sweet revenge. As she leaves the room in a huff, the camera slowly pans up and lingers on the Frankenstein poster seen earlier, foreshadowing the very real terror that awaits Joey and Amy in a night they won’t soon forget.

In a perfect world a giant fat-ass geisha wearing a muumuu would shit on your head at the entrance to every funhouse.

I really enjoyed the early scenes of THE FUNHOUSE, as director Tobe Hooper shows an affinity for the classic horror movies he was raised on while simultaneously poking fun at the slasher movies that were all the rage when this was initially released. It seems that with this movie, his first studio effort after the success of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE,  he sought to meld the grimy realism and sordid family drama of that film with the atmospheric fun of the horror movies of 40’s and 50’s, and in that respect the film is very successful. There isn’t anything about THE FUNHOUSE that one could classify as original, as it falls prey to the usual slasher movie formula of a group of one virginal teen and her oversexed friends smoking pot and getting themselves killed, but the unique setting of the carnival, in particular the interior of the funhouse, injects a much-appreciated dose of surreal imagery and seedy atmosphere to the proceedings.

Whatchu lookin' at?

The first forty-five minutes or so are a particularly dry affair, as we follow the teens throughout the carnival, exploring the various attractions being peddled by the barkers, all of whom are played to sleazy perfection by Kevin Conway. Either the filmmakers found a real carnival and filmed there, or they set one up on their own, but whatever the case it looks very authentic, and I greatly enjoyed this portion of the movie as you can almost smell the cotton candy mixing with the sweaty stench of the carnies. We follow our leads as they visit a freakshow that contains genuine deformed animals, including a cow with a cleft palate, and another one with two heads. Also on display is a  mutated human fetus contained in a glass tank. We also follow them to a magic show featuring a delightfully drunk vampire/magician, a scene that probably could have been cut but adds some much-appreciated color to the proceedings. What I could have done without is a scene in which the teens cut a hole in one of the tents so they can get a view of the strip show, featuring some truly rough, grizzled skanks writhing around in thongs in front of a slack-jawed hillbilly audience. As the teens wander from place to place, they keep passing by the funhouse, and Amy takes notice of a very tall, gangly, totally silent man wearing a Frankenstein mask ushering patrons to and from the attraction. There is something oddly sad and slightly ominous about the man, and the teens waste no time in mocking him behind his back.

As the night begins to wind down Richie gets the bright idea of spending the night inside the funhouse, and so the whole gang agrees to sneak out of their carts in the middle of the ride and settle in for a night of premarital bliss. But things soon turn sour as they witness an awkward sexual encounter between the Frankenstein mask-clad Gunther and a haggard palm-reader that turns deadly, as Gunther strangles the woman to death out of sexual frustration. Horrified, the teens attempt to flee, but Richie’s lighter falls out of his front pocket and through the boards into the room below, clueing Gunther and his funhouse barker father (Conway, again) to their presence. Apparently the two have a history of disposing of the mangled bodies of Gunther’s victims, and so the father commands the son to get rid of the trespassing teens by any means necessary.

Despite her protestations, Gunther was determined  to make sparks fly between the two of them.

The rest of the movie follows the standard stalk and chase routine of a thousand other slasher movies, but the addition of the funhouse setting really kicks things up a notch or two. The interior of this funhouse is a set designers wet dream, with endless opportunities for mechanical puppetry to pop out, or trap doors to open up beneath your feet, spilling you into an inky abyss, and you eventual doom. It turns out that beneath that Frankenstein mask lies a very real monster, as Gunther’s true face is a split-faced visage of demonic terror. It is here that Tobe Hooper’s true strengths lie, as he revels in the scenes of familial dysfunction between Gunther and his abusive father, who reveals in some expository dialogue that the unborn fetus in the freakshow was actually Gunther’s stillborn twin. The scenes between Gunther and his father reminded me most of the director’s TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in its nonchalant depiction of a family of psychotics who maintain an obsessive loyalty to one another, a recurring theme in Hooper’s oeuvre. Gunther in these scenes behaves very much like Leatherface in that film, all confused grunting and pathetic squawks of confused terror. Horrific as he looks, the film easily evokes a small amount of pathos for the obviously mentally-handicapped villain, much akin to the Frankenstein monster who he disguises himself as in public.

On the periphery of the main story, Amy’s little brother Joey has snuck out of the house to follow his sister to the carnival, and the filmmakers make a concerted effort to ensure that, even without the presence of the vile funhouse denizens, his night is as traumatic as it can be. His trek to the carnival grounds include encounters with a vicious Doberman, a drunk in a pickup truck who accosts him on the side of the road before pulling a shotgun on him, a shrieking hag outside of the funhouse, and eventually the knowledge that his sister and her friends are trapped inside. By the end of the night the kid is catatonic, unable to tell his parents where his sister is. I’m unsure what Hooper’s intentions were for including this storyline, as it never coalesces with the main plot in any way, except perhaps as a way of tying in a theme of lost innocence between the two siblings, never more apparent than in the scene of Gunter’s initial unmasking, in which Hooper appears to be ripping away the safe façade of the monsters of yesterday to reveal the seedy underbelly of the real world that served as their inspiration. It helps that many of the side characters are obviously cast with authentically crazy motherfuckers, as well as a vagrant or two.

Cheeeeese!!!!

The film is all-around very well shot and directed. Hooper and cinematographer Andrew Laszlo make effective use of natural lighting in the carnival scenes, and there is an amazing crane shot that pulls back from the funhouse, rising to an incredible height above the carnival as the lights go out and the patrons leave, that signals the tonal change into desolation in the film’s second act. The performances from our four leads, while not at all terrible, is definitely the weakest aspect of the production, as there is no strong lead character for the audience to latch on to. We expect Amy to make it to the end only because the plot necessitates it, rather than because of any kind of attachment to the character. She’s a bit of a wet blanket, coming off as weak and ineffective even when she eventually fights back against her mutant pursuer.

Don't worry, folks. He knows a thing or two about being penetrated from the rear, if ya catch my drift.

Weak characterizations aside, Hooper  delivers the goods, churning out a solid entry in the early-80’s slasher genre that displays far more genuine craftsmanship and skill behind the camera than any other film of this type from this era. THE FUNHOUSE might not be high art, but the filmmakers obviously put a lot of effort into delivering a very classy-looking and decently spooky fun film that does a fine job of evoking my own memories of carnivals, as well as revealing the dark underbelly we all imagine might lurk beneath their already seedy veneer.

My Rating:
7/10