Line #40 Film/TheFunhouse


1	[[quoteright:274:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/massacre_train_fantime_affiche_8391.jpg]]
2
3	->'' Pay to get in. Pray to get out.''
4
5	The carnival has come to town!
6
7	Four teens, Amy (Creator/ElizabethBerridge), Buzz (Creator/CooperHuckabee), Richie (Creator/MilesChapin), and Liz (Creator/LargoWoodruff), are having a {{double date}} and decide to visit the traveling carnival. After seeing the usual attractions, they smoke some dope and have the bright idea to stay in the funhouse after the carnival's closing.
8
9	While making out in the hiding, they accidentally witness the funhouse barker's son Gunther (Creator/WayneDoba) strangling the carnival's {{fortune teller}} because he's not pleased with her... erm... "services". Soon enough they find out that they are [[ClosedCircle locked inside]] and -- due to Richie's stupid idea to steal the funhouse barker's money -- Gunther and his father are now hunting them down.
10
11	And that's Creator/TobeHooper's[[note]]also the director of ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'' and ''Film/{{Poltergeist\|1982}}''[[/note]] 1981 SlasherMovie ''The Funhouse''. It has your typical Slasher conventions: Stupid teens, plenty of FanService, and a deformed albino killer so monstrous that he has three noses and [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]].
12
13	Oh, and Creator/DeanKoontz wrote the novelization. More on that below.
14	----
15	!!Enter the funhouse, and you'll find:
16	* AchillesHeel: Women are this to Gunther. He can't control himself when meeting them.
17	* AutoErotica: Two carnies are seen making out in a van.
18	* AmusementPark: The setting for most of the movie.
19	* AxeBeforeEntering: Gunther busts through a door to get to Amy.
20	* BeingEvilSucks: When Conrad tries to convince Gunther to go after the teens (see the ''Pet the Dog'' entry below) Conrad seems to really feel guilty about the other girls Gunther has killed before: he especially talks about an episode involving two girls, repeating twice how much horrible it was while staring off in the space. This makes clear that even if he helped Gunther in getting away with the previous murders because he really has some love for his son, he felt anyway disgusted for what he had to do to help him and what he had to witness.
21	* CatScare: Provided by a dog to Joey as he is walking to the carnival.
22	* ClosedCircle: There are only four would-be victims of the monster, so it takes a while for them to start getting picked off.
23	* ConveyorBeltOfDoom: The underside of the ride becomes one in the climax.
24	* CoversAlwaysLie: Various VHS and DVD covers show a murderous clown with an axe, who doesn't appear in the film at all.
25	** And despite what the French poster above is telling, no one's nose gets electrocuted in this film.
26	* CreepyDoll: The funhouse is filled with these. Several of them also appear during the opening credits.
27	* CrowbarCombatant: Amy defends herself with a crowbar in the final confrontation with Gunther.
28	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The movie takes its time to set up the four main characters before killing them off.
29	* DoubleDate: The reason why the kids go to the carnival.
30	* DramaticThunder: The artificial kind is featured in the funhouse.
31	* DramaticUnmask: Gunther unmasks himself as he thrashes around.
32	* EvilLaugh: Done by some of the dolls in the funhouse, some even to {{Narm}}y levels.
33	* {{Fanservice}}:
34	** The movie starts off with [[ShowerScene Amy in the shower]], although it's mostly ShouldersUpNudity and ToplessnessFromTheBack.
35	** Later, the kids stumble on a peep show.
36	* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Amy is the only survivor of the four main characters.]]
37	* FortuneTeller: Madame Zena. She even has a CrystalBall.
38	* FrankensteinsMonster: Gunther is dressed as one to hide deformed features.
39	* TheFreakshow: Gunther's deceased deformed brother is displayed in one.
40	%%* GiantEyeOfDoom: Found in the funhouse.
41	%%* GiantSpider: Ditto.
42	%%* GoryDiscretionShot: Used on Liz's death.
43	* GroundByGears: [[spoiler:Gunther dies when he he is caught in the gears of the funhouse after being electrocuted.]]
44	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Conrad ends up impaled when Buzz pushes him on one of the funhouse exhibits.
45	* ImpendingDoomPOV: Mixed with HandOfDeath at the beginning as Amy is surprised in the shower. It turns out that this is just a prank played by Amy's brother Joey, however.
46	* ImprobableInfantSurvival: There are scenes of Amy's little brother being in potential peril, but he makes it out okay in the end.
47	* IncestSubtext: Amy's brother plays a prank on her while she takes a shower. Part of this prank involves drawing a fake knife slowly past her bare breasts to her navel, which has very sexually violent overtones. She's annoyed he scared her but isn't too concerned that he just got a lingering view of her naked body. He then sneaks out to trail her on her date, for reasons never explained.
48	%%* InMysteriousWays: Said by Gunther's father.
49	* JizzedInMyPants: Gunther kills Madame Zena when he comes early and she won't give him a refund.
50	* JumpScare: Due to Gunther's thrashing with Zena, the electrics in the funhouse go haywire and start up at random intervals.
51	* MurderByMistake: Gunther tricks Buzz to kill Richie.
52	* {{Mutants}}: Gunther. His deceased brother was also one and is on display in the freak show.
53	* NerdGlasses: Richie wears them.
54	* NamedByTheAdaptation: Conrad and Gunther Straker remain unnamed in the film and the ending credits call them "Funhouse Barker" and "The Monster". Their real names are featured in the novelization.
55	* NotQuiteDead: After being impaled, Conrad springs back to life and attacks Buzz for one last time.
56	* NovelizationFirst: Due to the movie's TroubledProduction, the novelization written by Creator/DeanKoontz (under the name Owen West) came out first.
57	* PeopleJars: Gunther's dead infant brother resides in one of the freak show attractions.
58	* PetTheDog: Gunther's father Conrad is an asshole most of the time, but we are shown that he does love his deformed son when Conrad convinces Gunther to go after the teens. He apologizes for his recent abusive behavior and promises to take Gunther on a fishing trip.
59	* {{Phlegmings}}: Gunther provides plenty of it as he is hideously deformed.
60	%%* ThePlace
61	* RedEyesTakeWarning: Gunther's eyes are blood red.
62	* {{Revenge}}: After Joey scares Amy in the shower, she vows to get back at him.
63	* TheScourgeOfGod: The monster is a carnival freak whose father tries to hide from the public, and attacks the teens for stealing the carnival's money.
64	* ScreamingWoman: Amy for most of the time stands and screams at the horrors around her.
65	* ShowerScene: Amy is taking a shower when her brother comes in to play a prank by invoking DeadlyBath while pretending to attack her with a fake knife, turning the scene into a PsychoShowerMurderParody, complete with PsychoStrings.
66	* StageMagician: Marco the Magnificent, who the protagonists go see.
67	* ShoutOut: The opening sequence is meant to be one long ode to previous horror films:
68	** We see a poster for Creator/UniversalStudios' ''Film/{{Frankenstein\|1931}}'' in Joey's room.
69	** Joey's ImpendingDoomPOV while wearing a mask is a direct homage to ''Film/{{Halloween\|1978}}''.
70	** Amy is then surprised in the shower by a shadowy figure holding a knife a la ''Film/{{Psycho}}''.
71	** The black gloves and clown mask of the "killer" seems to emulate {{Giallo}} films.
72	** We follow Amy downstairs after that where we see her parents watching ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein''.
73	* TakingYouWithMe: When Gunther is being crushed by the gears, he tries to pull in Amy with him.
74	* ThickerThanWater: Conrad's reason to protect his son.
75	* TitleConfusion: Legend has it that this film was included on the Video Nasties list due to confusion with ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_House_on_Dead_End_Street Last House on Dead End Street]]'', a far more violent and disturbing film [[SimilarlyNamedWorks that was also]] released on video as ''The Funhouse''.
76	* TrapDoor: Liz is caught by one.
77	* TheUnintelligible: Gunther, though he manages to blurt out "father" when Conrad questions him about Zena's death.
78	* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Madame Zena puts her payment for sex into her cleavage.
79	* WouldHurtAChild: It is mentioned that Gunther killed two girl scouts when the carnival was visited in Memphis.
80	----
81
82	The novelization based on the script (written by Creator/DeanKoontz under the pseudonym Owen West) was released in 1980. The reason it was [[NovelizationFirst released earlier]] is because the film's production took longer than expected.
83
84	It greatly expands the roles of Amy's mother Ellen and Conrad Straker, as it reveals that they were married twenty years ago. Overtly Christian Ellen killed their firstborn son Victor (as she believed that he was evil) and ran away. Conrad vows that he will kill her children if she ever again has any. He then uses his carnival job to lure in kids that he suspects are Ellen's and lets Gunther kill them. Joey also gets an expanded role: Ellen's issues have driven him to run away with the carnival, and he is also hunted through the funhouse.
85	Madame Zenda's role is also expanded, as she is Conrad's second ex-wife and helps Conrad to his targets. She also doesn't have sex with Gunther, as she's his mother.
86
87	!!Within the pages of the novelization there are:
88	* ActionSurvivor: Amy becomes this in the novel, improving greatly from 'standing around screaming'
89	* HollywoodSatanism: Conrad turns out to be a case of this. [[spoiler: He was trying to use his then-teenage bride, Ellen, to breed the AntiChrist. Twenty-odd years later, Ellen is still fighting paranoia that 'the Devil' could come out in Joey, or Amy's children.]]
90	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Although Amy gets herself and Joey out alive, her best friend and two acquaintances are dead. Not to mention that Conrad has revealed enough hints to Joey about his past relationship with Ellen, that Joey, at least, is going to have some pointed questions for his mother.]]
91	* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: inverted. Amy is by all accounts a 'good girl' but has an abortion before the fateful date at the carnival. [[spoiler: Ellen, otherwise vehemently Christian, instantly agrees to pay for it (to Amy's surprise) because she's afraid that Amy will give birth to the AntiChrist - just like Ellen possibly did, twenty years before.]]
92	%%* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Ellen
93	%%* HenpeckedHusband
94	* MonsterMisogyny: [[spoiler: Liz's death in the novel, especially compared to the movie. While her death in the movie is brutal (her head gets shoved into an industrial fan, for Pete's sake), she at least goes headfirst. Here in the book, she's literally ''raped'' and then ''dismembered''. The boys, on the other hand, just get decapitated and shot.]]
95	%%* MyBelovedSmother
96	* TeenPregnancy: Amy has this problem - briefly. See above.

Context Film / TheFunhouse