Bring up the name Tobe Hooper and two movies come to mind. In 1974, the director changed horror forever when he made The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. With this terrifying take on the life and crimes of Ed Gein, Hooper proved you could make a gut-wrenchingly terrifying film without that much gore. In 1982, Hooper directed Poltergeist, but as great as that film was, it was mired in controversy over the conflicting reports that Steven Spielberg might be its true director, which diminishes what Hooper did. Those aren’t the only movies he ever made though. Tobe Hooper was a master of horror who directed many great films during his career, and one of the best came in 1981 with The Funhouse. It might not be as popular as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or Poltergeist, but another famous director named Quentin Tarantino loves it! It was also a guilty pleasure for Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

‘The Funhouse’ Pairs Well With ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’

1981 was a huge year for slasher movies. Not only did we get heavyweights like Halloween II and the first showcase of Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part 2, but we also got classics such as The Burning, The Prowler, My Bloody Valentine, and many others. Then there was The Funhouse. Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to Eaten Alive (another underrated horror movie) didn’t set the box office on fire, making only $7.8 million in theaters, but although it got lost in a crowded year, it has lived on. Understandably, Tobe Hooper will always best be known for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The director died in 2017, but no matter what he did, that film followed him. While The Funhouse can’t compare to an all-time classic, it’s in the same league as this legendary film thanks to a similar plot. In both films, clueless teenagers are going where they shouldn’t. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, they go into a rundown home on the side of a country road without being invited in. What waits inside is a man in a mask and rooms so shocking that it’s like a funhouse come to life. In The Funhouse, our unfortunate heroes discover similar horrors, just in a different setting.

There have been other horror movies set at a carnival, and for good reason. They’re terrifying because they’re these odd little events that seem to pop up out of nowhere, run by oddball people with strange shows, and lots of mystery. Who are these people, where do they come from, and what lurks inside those dark buildings? The Funhouse explores that, using admittedly paper-thin teenage characters, led by our customary soon-to-be final girl, Amy (Elizabeth Berridge), and her horny friends who visit the local carnival at night, when they decide to hide inside the funhouse so they can get high and make out. Nothing is even happening, and we’re scared because of the mysterious characters and the look of the funhouse, complete with horrific animatronics, which play into our fear of dolls and faces that our minds can’t comprehend. The animatronic of the laughing woman above the funhouse will give you chills alone.

Quentin Tarantino and Siskel & Ebert Are Fans of ‘The Funhouse’

The Funhouse was a popular video store rental thanks to that cover with a creepy-looking ax-wielding clown who seemed to be coming out of the picture. That poster might have been misleading, as there is no creepy killer clown in The Funhouse, but no matter, several Hollywood icons have spoken out about their love for it. In 1987, during an episode of Siskel & Ebert at the Movies titled “Guilty Pleasures,” critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert included The Funhouse on their list. This was a shock because the two were known for hating any slasher not named Halloween. Siskel loathed the first Friday the 13th so much that he actually spoiled the killer reveal in his written review. They weren’t the only famous names who have declared their fandom for The Funhouse. In November 2022, Quentin Tarantino released Cinema Speculation, a book made up of a collection of film essays, with each chapter looking at a different film. One of the films Tarantino fondly writes about is The Funhouse.

In Cinema Speculation, Tarantino writes about a new horror movie coming out every two weeks in 1981. An 18-year-old Tarantino went to see The Funhouse, but he wasn’t overly impressed. He wrote, “I enjoyed it well enough but considered it a touch on the mediocre side.” However, in 2011, Tarantino decided to do a rewatch of older slashers. When he got to The Funhouse, he was surprised to discover that he enjoyed it much more on a second watch. The director touted “Hooper’s direction, staging of scenes, his dynamic coverage, cinematographer Andrew Laszlo’s photography, his towering crane shots, production designer Mort Rabinowitz’s creepy carnival, and his immensely effective funhouse set.” The carnival setting is what Gene Siskel highlighted as well during “Guilty Pleasures,” saying, “They always seem so creepy, carnivals do, around the edges… the terror is really inherent in Funhouse, in its beautiful setting.”

‘The Funhouse’ Has the Rare Sympathetic Villain
Image via Universal Pictures

In Quentin Tarantino’s opinion, the biggest surprise of The Funhouse was the script itself, which was written by Larry Block. Tarantino thought everything about it was simple and obvious the first time he watched it, “but on the second go-round it revealed a level of depth and sophistication that forced me to reconsider that whole film.” You’re not going to find much depth in the cookie-cutter protagonists, but where The Funhouse stands out is with its villain. When our leads decide to stay the night in the funhouse, they witness a man wearing a mask of Frankenstein’s monster paying for sex with a fortune teller at the carnival. We don’t know who this man named Gunther (Wayne Doba) is outside of seeing him earlier helping out with the ride, but whoever he is, he isn’t your normal guy. He doesn’t speak, but communicates in grunts, and is unsure of how to touch the woman. That doesn’t make him scary, but sympathetic. He doesn’t come across as an aggressive, stereotypical bad guy but a stunted man who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

When he gets overly excited, ending the moment prematurely, the fortune teller refuses to give him his money back and makes fun of him, so he kills her. It’s not necessarily done out of hate but from frustration at the whole situation. Gunther is trying to show love, to touch someone, to feel good, but he gets mocked for his efforts. It’s the woman he’s with who’s the horrible one… well, at least until Gunther kills her. Even then, we don’t feel so sorry for her. Making matters much worse is the fact that Gunther’s adopted father, Conrad Straker (Kevin Conway), bullies him relentlessly. This leads to Gunther’s mask coming off to show us his true screaming face underneath. What we see are the features of a slasher baddie like we’ve never witnessed before, with Gunther’s greyish-green skin pulled apart in distorting angles, giving Gunther wide-set yellow eyes, a misshapen nose, and sharp, jagged teeth. His face is frightening to behold, for sure, and Gunther’s personality then begins to make sense. With his looks, he has probably always been hidden away and made to feel like he isn’t really human. When you’re not treated like a human, you’re not going to know how to act like one either.

Conrad begins to kill the teens trapped inside, all while belittling his son, who kills with him as the rage of the torment consumes him. One pivotal moment has Gunther trapped with one of Amy’s friends, Liz (Largo Woodruff). He doesn’t attack her, but walks slowly toward Liz, with her telling Gunther how she could love him. The knife hidden behind her back lets us know she’s lying, and when Gunther leans in, not to sexually assault her, but to hug Liz, she stabs him in the back. It’s a literal stab in the back, but also emotionally, because Gunther was trusting Liz and just wanted to be paid attention to in his own way. Gunther is the rare villain we feel sorry for. He just wants to be loved and to show love, but he doesn’t know how because he’s always been hidden away. In “Guilty Pleasures,” Gene Siskel said, “He also has a tragic killer at the end, that poor disfigured boy under the Frankenstein mask, I mean we feel for the guy.” The choice of mask is fitting because, just like Frankenstein’s monster, Gunther is misunderstood and treated like a freak. It’s the normal-looking humans around him who are the real monsters.

The Funhouse is available to watch on Shudder in the U.S.

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