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By
NICK ZEGARAC
"The Funhouse" is one of
those wacky tacky slasher flicks from the early
'80s that used to seem like the height of terror,
but since then has transmuted to merely a dated
footnote in the annals of horror films and cinema
in general. It stars Elizabeth Berridge (of
"Amadeus" fame) as Amy Harper. Amy and her troupe
of teen toughies, Buzz (Cooper Huckabee), Liz
(Largo Woodruff) and Ritchie (Miles Chaplin) are
your typical pack of oversexed morally bankrupt
adolescents. Living in a small dead end town, they
get their kicks by getting high and into trouble.
So, when the circus/sideshow comes to town it
seems like the perfect place to indulge in the
perversions of youthful folly. Unfortunately for
Amy and Co. this traveling show is home to a
hideous and horny little monster (Wayne Doba) --
sort of a cross between a midget, an ape and the
killer's mask from "Terror Train." Amy and friends
think it's cool to crash the circus after all the
performers have gone to bed. But when they
accidentally stumble across Madame Zena (Sylvia
Miles) getting raped and murdered by the monster
they retreat with fear into the funhouse where,
naturally, the monster sets to work picking them
off like flies, one by one. Clearly inspired by
visions of Tod Browning's illustrious scare fest,
"Freaks," director Tobe Hooper tries to recapture
some of the taut tension of Browning's classic,
but ultimately succumbs to the urge of creating a
gore fest. This he effectively does but the result
is less of a classic and more of a passing fancy
on celluloid. The final experience: pay to get in,
pray for it to be over.
Universal's anamorphically enhanced 2:35:1 DVD
looks rather good considering the age and prestige
of the production. Colors are fully saturated --
if dated -- with mostly accurate flesh tones, deep
-- mostly solid -- blacks, and considerable fine
details emerging from the contrast and shadow
levels. Film grain is kept to a minimum and age
related artifacts on the whole are absent. The
audio is 2.0 mono and nicely cleaned up. It
suffers from a dated characteristic with frontal
sounding dialogue and directionalized effects but
this is as the producers intended it to be. The
only extra is the film's theatrical trailer. |
