The Funhouse
| release date | March 13 1981 |
| studio | Universal Pictures |
| director | Tobe Hooper |
| writer | Lawrence Block |
| starring | Elizabeth Berridge, Shawn Carson, Jeanne Austin, and Jack McDermott |
| rating | R |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
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16 Comments
Overall I thought this movie was boring up untill the last 30 minutes. not something I’d want to watch again but its worth one watch. I guess the twists and turns were just to bland for me.
I feel like this movie is WAAAAAAY underrated.
It is very well made… the carnival is incredibly genuine and creepy. I enjoyed it immensely. It’s not exactly fast-paced… I don’t think that hurt it at all. Great tension. It’s not as incredible as Hooper’s Chainsaw Massacre… but it’s still a skillfully-crafted great time. This should be way more popular.
Mostly Boring. I hardly enjoyed this film, I was expecting much more….
I saw this the weekend it was released in theaters. Next to JC’s Halloween, this is my favorite movie. Great widescreen photography, acting, music, direction…you name it. Sadly, I’ve stopped recommending it to people because everyone seems to hate it, and I never hear the end of it from them. Oh, well… Tobe, you really kicked ass on this one, brother.
The Funhouse is a cool 80′s slasher flick in a carnival. Pretty basic but it actually has a cool style and is a bit under-rated.
I have to say this film is average at best. The shower was o.k then it started to go down hill. But it is a watchable film from a great horror film Director he just dropped the ball on this one but no one is perfect.
Half good, half bad! That pretty much sums up the movie.
The first half of the movie is great. It starts of with a shower scene that is pretty cool
I wont give too much away, but there is tits. After this the movie goes through the standard slasher stage with character development. The four main characters have fun at the carnival. That er tons of fun scenes here, including a two headed cow, show girls and roller coaster rides.
The second half of the movie is supposed to be the scary part of the movie, where the kids get locked in the fun-house where they witness a murder. This part falls a bit flat, and most of all feels like the boring sections of Wes Craven’s “The People Under the Stairs”.
This movie is worth a watch. But if you want to watch a better and more scary movie with the same theme you should check out Clownhouse insted.
worth a watch, at least once
It was ok.
“The Funhouse” is another of my favorite slasher movies from the 80′s.
I love the carnival setting in this movie, As a kid I always loved freak shows ,I loved the way they incorporated the freak show into the story and when the barker aka “the creatures father” says to the creature “You could have ended up like your little brother in there” referring to a horribly deformed stillborn baby in a big jar of formaldehyde that the teenagers see while going through the freak show tent.
The creature in this movie is very effective.
As a woman it was even more disturbing because of the scenes where the creature is intimate with the fortune teller and then when he is kissing and drooling all over the girl that’s trapped in an air vent or whatever it is.
You know he has the same sexual needs and desires as a normal man and I actually felt sorry for him because he was a product of his upbringing and his deformity.
Hooper somehow seems to humanize him no matter how hideous he is.
It has some good kills and a good feel to it “creepy”…It’s another must for the collector.
One of the few Tobe Hooper masterpieces and sure one of the best slashers from the 80s. An excellent and very supenseful hell ride with a great script, fantastic settings, a fantastic score and some absolutely amazing edge-of-your-seat-scenes. A really sensational and still underrated must-see!
A fantastic movie! When the villain is finally revealed for the first time it gives you one hell of a jolt. I can think of several scenes which are tense as hell and downright startling, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. So just see the damn thing! It’s one of Tobe Hooper’s best, what are you waiting for?!?!?!?
I am a huge 80′s horror fan but this one for some reason was just ok to me. It really had everything I normally love about horror but something didn’t click. I liked it and will someday watch it again and most likely again but I hope my opinion changes. I still think you should check it out because it was a desent film.
I agree with some others on here. Medicore is what I would call The Funhouse. I think it had potential to be better but lacked a certain punch. It started out well, but once the group is in The Funhouse, it failed. The atmosphere is great and story is simple. But I thought the creature/monster was cheesy looking and not scary at all. It seemed to lack suspense and thrills the most. I’m fine with movies that are slow building and focus on character development first, but it should have a big payoff at the end and The Funhouse didn’t really deliver the goods. This is a film that could definitely benefit from a remake however Hollywood chooses to remake classics like Psycho, Halloween and Black Christmas. I don’t get it.
lol cheesy as hell! But a fun kinda cheese! Loved it!
Tobe Hooper has yet to match the sheer terror of his “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. He does his best with the material, but he doesn’t have much to work with. This is pretty much a standard issue slasher film. Yick.
I have grown to hate slasher films, with the exception of the original “Halloween” and it’s Rob Zombie remake.
This movie was quite good I thought. While the opening scene was somewhat cliche, the following scenes at the carnival I felt added creepiness and a realistic feel to the film. Tobe really used the setting to his advantage, and the freakshow prepared us for what was to come of the villain. I think Wayne Doba deserves more credit for his acting as the Frankenstein, his movements combined with the voice and his tantrums were done perfectly. Not to mention they really made sure to add a certain humility to the character, at times you felt sorry for him. My only complaint was that the ending could have been better, but overall i enjoyed this movie!
This movie takes forever to get going, and when it does, its no 80′s gem. The creepy opening credits are really as scary as this one gets. Four high teenagers trapped in a carnival funhouse, in which they steal a mongoloids money (nothing pisses them off more). The killer wasnt really all that threatning, and you couldnt find one character to like. This movie was better when I seen it years ago.
Not scary in the least, but a fun technical ride by tobe!
Another great film by director Tobe Hooper, this film never got the right respect that it deserves. I first saw it when I was about nine and loved it right away. Known as just being yet another 80′s slasher flick it has almost been completely forgotten. Like most under appreciated films it takes time to find the right audience and sometimes it never does. This film seems to fit neatly in the middle as being both as a bad and great film.
The only thing that seems to be wrong with it is that it takes quite a while to get going. It’s starts off slow and remains that way for most of the first half of the film. But it’s in that first half we are able to watch and understand who the characters really are. There are some scenes that seem to be unnecessary at times too. It does do a good job with keeping the feeling of the main theme constant and also keeping the look of the carnival very real and convincing.
Once the young teens find themselves locked inside ‘The Funhouse’ is when things really start to pick up speed and the suspense begins! The film does a great job with visual and lighting effects to create a very creepy and nightmarish atmosphere that works very well. You can never really tell what is really hiding in the shadows.
The plot in the second half is very typical in a simple slasher film with a killer that stalks his victims but in this case it’s more unique. The killer is something interesting in itself and that it’s not a man with a knife but a beast like thing that has a mind of child. There’s even times when ‘The Funhouse’ itself seems to take on a life of its own and taunts the poor teens.
Even up to the final climax the entire mood of the film never fades and the evil and creepy world of ‘The Funhouse’ stays with you.
(There is also a novelization of the film that offers a different look and back story that was written by Dean Koontz in 1980. An interesting fact about that is it is often mistaken that the film was based on a novel since the novel came out before the films release because of post-production. Koontz at that time published it under an alias. A great read.)
Loved this movie. It was a little slow getting to the good stuff but overall it was a fun ride (pun intended). Worth a watch if you’re as much of an 80s cheese fan as I am
LOVE !!!! Remake Please !
A Headsplitting Hooper Extravaganza!
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I remember the first time I saw this film. I was young and didn’t know anything about it other than the Director was Tobe Hooper. I remember that it scared the hell out of me!
Now years later this is a must have on my shelf of great horror flics. Watching it today it has lost very little for me. It’s still a fun movie and it would have gotten a perfect review but it takes sometime to get where it’s going. But when it gets there, man oh man. It’s one scary as hell little picture.
Kevin Conway is perfect as “the carnival barker”. He is sleezy and pure evil from start to finish.
Considering the monster or the inbred offspring in the Frankenstein mask is kind of a sympathetic character at first. He is being abused by the likes of “Conway” and in a sick but darkly humorous scene is ripped off “or better yet” thinks he was ripped off by receiving a hand job from the nasty fortune teller. He gets angry and kills her. All while a bunch of stoned teens look on at first in amusement and then in horror as he kills her.
Conway finds that his funhouse is not empty as it should be after hours and decides rather quickly to off the pesky teens. Then the movie picks up steam like a runaway locomotive and never lets up till the disturbing end.
As a side note, I guess what really scared the be-Jesus out of me was when the Frankenstein mask comes off and we see what the teens have stalking them through the funhouse. Along with Kevin Conway the epitome of evil in the flesh.