Reviews Funhouse

Between The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper helmed the cult classic, Funhouse - a sort-of retro-active updating of the classic dark carnival story. Funhouse is interesting as a Tobe Hooper film, but not a particularly good film.

You see his development from the tracking shots of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the wildly off-beat, psychopathic antagonists who populate many of his movies, but Funhouse suffers from a convoluted story and lackadaisical pace. Also, like too many slashers of the same period, Funhouse introduces tons of characters and plot-points for the sole purpose of conveniently forgetting them. However, if you are a Tobe Hooper fan, you'll immediately realize how important a flick this is in his development.

The characters appear in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (as different characters in various garb, but essentially the same archetypes if nothing else) and many of the shots and filming tricks pop-up in Poltergeist, so you can skip Funhouse if you aren't interested in this development because you've probably already seen them in the other two, superior, flicks.

But don't discount it entirely; Funhouse is a movie in and of itself and it does deliver. You just have to slug through an hour or two of setup to get that neat package.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011