The Funhouse Shout! Factory / Scream Factory Blu-Ray Review

The Funhouse Blu-Ray has finally arrived in my mailbox, and like Daffy Duck awaiting his subscription to Dick Twacy I have anticipated this with nearly religious fervor. JR received his the week before I did, but he was good enough to wait for my invitation to watch together.

The Funhouse has been overdue for a special edition since the early days of DVD. I remember buying the "Goodtimes" DVD release and eagerly getting completely creeped out by seeing the film for the first time in widescreen, not even knowing the picture was way too dark. A few years later the Universal DVD release fixed the brightness and really popped for the first time on home video. The Funhouse is only the second Blu-Ray I've bought, the first being Charles Kaufman's Mother's Day, and the most compelling upgrade on the new format has been seeing more color and detail not so much in the carnival and funhouse, but in the actors' faces. You can actually see the change in tone on Liz's face where her makeup was applied, and practically count the hairs in Kevin Conway's beard!

Kevin Conway is actually the first order of business in assessing this new package, since Shout! Factory's new horror sublabel "Scream Factory" has taken on the tough and largely thankless work of old film re-discovery and promotional re-release. Most of their Blu-Ray and DVD re-releases have new original art, with varying success. What we have for The Funhouse is by artist Nathan Thomas Milliner and it's kind of a wash, but oddly enough this is the first official art for any promotion of The Funhouse to feature Frankenstein OR any members of the cast up front. 

Unfortunately the kids and Frankenstein look traced from film stills, and as much as I love the character, The Barker really SHOULD NOT be on the cover. If you'll recall last month's scene analysis, the initially peripheral presence of Kevin Conway as the various barkers of the carnival - and then reappearance as Frankenstein / The Monster's father, the Funhouse Barker - is a great surprise for first time viewers, and now the cat's out of the bag even for the new audience. It's not like revealing Norman Bates is really Mrs. Bates, but still. Moreover, the illustration of Conway is more caricatured than the way the teens look, and the drawing styles clash. Worse than that, check out the bottom of the cover - they cut his gun out of frame! Now he's just a creepy guy with mutton chops, center stage. I can't imagine this enticing new viewers on sight alone.

The back cover is a better story because the plot summary actually reads as written by someone who gets The Funhouse's strengths, whereas previous editions were always inaccurate in some way...half-true promises of "a killer in a Frankenstein mask" and teens being dispatched by various implements of destruction inside the funhouse. These inaccuracies can now be swept away thanks to this deft description at the top of Shout! Factory's release:

Director Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) pays affectionate tribute to various classic horror movies in this tale of two teenage couples who spend the night in a sleazy carnival funhouse.

Wow, perfect! They mention the mostly-ignored undercurrent of horror genre homage and using the word "sleazy" cuts straight to the appeal of the first half of the film spent exploring the carnival at large. On a minor note, the interview with Kevin Conway isn't listed with the other special features as it was a last-minute get.

The best accommodation Shout! Factory offers to fans of The Funhouse and other re-release titles is the inclusion of reversible sleeve for the disc case itself, showing original poster art. This is a great choice to have in the modern era, when original poster art never survives unscathed by Photoshop on newer home video packaging. The jack-in-the-box guy, whom I'm not particularly fond of, is nonetheless an iconic and stark piece of shlocky graphic design. The original drooling mouth poster (which emblazons this blog) still finds its way into the packaging on the cover of the disc itself, which is terrific. All in all, flawed but very thoughtful packaging, which helps make up for the smaller size of the case - that's a minor gripe with Blu-Rays in general, getting less plastic for my dollar.

The retrospective interviews are of course what longtime fans like myself and JR have been waiting for. Neither of us have been able to check out the extras from across the pond on the Arrow Video UK release - which include commentaries with producer Derek Power, longtime Hooper special effects man Craig Reardon, video interviews with Hooper and Miles Chapin, and an essay by Kim Newman inside the packaging. Even with all that, I think Scream Factory got the more valuable interviews thanks to home field advantage: music composer John Beal, executive producer (and trash auteur) Mark Lester, an audio clip of William Finley and the aforementioned Kevin Conway interview. Shout! also includes the deleted TV broadcast scenes which first surfaced on YouTube, and the original TV spot with Cooper Huckabee and Elizabeth Berridge - real treats. Craig Reardon and Miles Chapin are sorely missed, as are the commentaries from the British horror critics Justin Kerswell and Howard S. Berger.

Tobe Hooper puts in his time on this release doing a commentary track, moderated by Tim Sullivan as his assisted-living nurse. Sullivan is known amongst a certain kind of well-meaning but desperate horror fan as the director of 2001 Maniacs. Having a co-host actually is a necessity for Hooper; the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 commentary felt like a sleepwalk despite the best efforts of that track's moderator, Chainsaw scholar David Gregory. Before JR and I sat down to watch, listen and take in the new picture and new knowledge, Jules advised that what we were about to hear might not be good, and I knew what he meant.

Fanboy.

As the film plays, Hooper and Sullivan's commentary sounds frequently like an excited fanboy pestering a fuzzy, kindly old master about the depths of subtext in an old masterwork, which the old man patiently explains were mostly happy happenstance. Which isn't a bad thing at all. Despite Sullivan's eye-rolling clumsy proclivity towards juvenile pretentiousness (he all but asks,  "Isn't it WE who are really the freaks?") he does get some good "where did that come from?" questions in edgewise, which Hooper always answers as best as he can remember. Sullivan also deserves credit for putting The Funhouse in context within the rest of Hooper's career, mentioning for instance his pattern of working with children in other films like Salem's Lot and Invaders From Mars. Good job, Tim!

As for the interviews, all four members of the creative crew have anecdotes not repeated in the commentary, and all look surprisingly healthy - except for Bill Finley, RIP. Kevin Conway looks especially spry and is highly articulate at the ripe old age of 70. Amusingly, Finley completely blows up Tobe's spot from beyond the grave by contradicting the commentary track and mentioning what a troubled production The Funhouse was, which reminded me how virtually every account of the film has corroborated this since 1981. What a rosy picture this Blu-Ray paints by comparison!

Kevin Conway, still lookin' good

The Funhouse on Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory / Scream Factory is overall the kind of release I really appreciate as both a longtime fan of the film and a fan of special edition home video - an exponentially smaller niche market since all the big name genre films of the past, and even most of the lesser known ones, have already been exhumed and re-polished. Other reviews will remark that this film is a "lost gem" and to follow that cliche a little further, the color has never shone brighter. Despite the piles of critical analyses available on the Arrow Video release, I think American fans have gotten the better package if one had to choose between the two. Don't you already get enough subtextual analysis here?

Click here to buy The Funhouse on Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory

The Funhouse is alive on Blu-Ray July 18th!

Pre-Order NOW from Arrow video!

Hey Funhouse freaks,

JR alerted me to this startling news last week, but I didn't want to steal the thunder from Joey Inside The Funhouse too soon.

After two "bare-bones" releases - the murky but finally widescreen 2001 Goodtimes disc and the cleaned-up 2004 Universal edition - The Funhouse is finally getting it's digital due on Blu-Ray this July 18th, thanks to the UK home video company Arrow Films. Of course the colors and shadows will be more vibrant than ever on the enhanced Blu conversion, but more importantly, Arrow has scrounged up more special features for this than any other Tobe Hooper movie since the original Chain Saw. I was amazed when The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 got as nice of a DVD special edition as it did, having long been considered a failure by critics and horror fans alike, but you could kind of see it coming with Bill "Chop-Top" Moseley's rediscovery in the films of Rob Zombie and the forgiving passage of time. Besides, it even did well enough on video back in the day to warrant a "Collector's Edition" VHS like it was Aliens or something. But The Funhouse? Part of the reason this blog exists is to bring more attention to an under-appreciated masterwork. Judging by the extras Arrow Films came up, you'd think it really was Aliens!

I have to wonder if The Funhouse has a better following in England than here in the States. My only theory is the fact that the film was put on the infamous Video Nasties list of banned horror films in England, which in itself was a case of mistaken identity with the grisly 1977 no-budget film The Last House On Dead Street being originally theatrically released as "The Funhouse." There's only one scene in the relatively tame 1981 Funhouse I think would catch the censor's ire - when a noose slips around Miles Chapin's neck. British censors hate hangings, it's the only violence snipped from the 1980 video nasty Human Experiments and I recall that the raucous song "The Lord Loves A-Hangin'" was banned from a Ren & Stimpy episode in the early 90s.

The fact a British company bothered to put a lot of great stuff together for a new video release is especially baffling considering that we're probably still a long ways from Eli Roth's rumored 3D remake, which is the only thing that would spike new interest in this long neglected masterpiece. Because British and American DVD / Blu releases always belong to different companies, we won't be seeing this disc on our store shelves. Fortunately Arrow advertises that the Blu is "ABC Region" meaning you can stick it in your American player.

Get a load of these extras:

- 4 panel reversible sleeve options with original and newly commissioned artwork

- Double-sided fold-out artwork poster


Arrow apparently creates original art for all their releases, which is admirable, but all the same I'm glad they give you the option of flipping to what will either be the theatrical "mouth" poster or the "Jack-in-the-box" video art. Their art is pretty cool, don't get me wrong, and I love that they incorporate the iconic Jack-in-the-box, but what's up with the girl? Being blonde she could only be interpreted as Liz, yet she's obviously wearing more revealing clothes for the sake of revealing clothes. In any case, what they came up with on their own is a nice tribute to the film in it's own right. They got the Fat Lady doll and post-mortem Richie in there, plus the arrangement of the unmasked Monster amongst other monsters creates a little ambiguity for those who haven't seen the film yet. Good color design as well.

- Collector’s booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by critic and author Kim Newman.


This is awesome. Kim Newman is a British horror novelist who dabbles in horror film criticism and manages to turn up on a lot of DVD special editions for horror and non-horror films alike. He's a smart chap; on the Batman Returns special edition he pointed out that Tim Burton's Bruce Wayne owes a lot to Citizen Kane. 


- Audio commentary with The Funhouse S/FX wizard Craig Reardon and Jeffrey Reddick (creator of The Final Destination series)

The first of a stunning 3(!) commentaries features the great Craig Reardon, who should have a lot to say. Jeffrey Reddick doesn't have anything to do with the film so he must just be a huge fan.


- Audio commentary with producer Derek Power and genre scholar Howard S. Berger

I don't know much about Derek Power but obviously as producer he'll have tons of great behind-the-scenes information. In 1979 he produced the horror film The Dark which Tobe spent a few days on before being replaced by John "Bud" Cardos, and that's probably how they knew each other. Power seems to have spent most of his post-Funhouse career in music, supervising the soundtracks of many films and working with The Police on concerts and documentaries.

Unfortunately I'm wasn't familiar with Howard S. Berger, but apparently he has a cool film blog called Destructible Man.


Incidentally - Howard Berger! Thanks for posting a comment to the blog. Sorry you felt the need to take it off, but any fan of The Funhouse is a friend of ours.


- Audio commentary with Justin Kerswell, author of ‘Teenage Wasteland’ and host of the slasher cinema website Hysteria Lives, and author Calum Waddell

You might think The Funhouse Blog is opposed to slashers because Hooper and Larry Block did such a bang-up job sending up the nascent cliches of the subgenres. I can't speak for JR, but I've been known to enjoy the occasional stylish or trashy or stylishly trashy stalk-n-slash and Hysteria Lives! is a very nice website dedicated to them. Kerswell is also a British bloke, which probably helped him get invited. Calum Waddell I'm not familiar with any more than Howard S. Berger, but he wrote a book about "Spider Baby" director Jack Hill so he must be pretty damn cool.

- Stuck in the Funhouse with director Tobe Hooper

- Carnage at the Carnival: Tobe Hooper Remembers ‘The Funhouse’

I don't know how much they paid Hooper to do his moderated commentary on Chainsaw 2, but he seems to hate commentaries. At least they got him to sit down here as Dark Sky Films did on their 2-disc Eaten Alive special edition DVD.

- Miles of Mayhem: Acting in Tobe’s Funhouse with star Miles Chapin


I wonder if he demanded his corpse be put on the cover art in exchange for the interview.

- A Trilogy of Terror: The Make-up Madness of Craig Reardon, the S/FX wizard recollects his collaborations with Tobe Hooper; ‘Eaten Alive’, ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘The Funhouse’

- Never before seen behind the scenes photographs from the collection of Craig Reardon

Who knows what Reardon will cover about The Funhouse that couldn't be covered in the commentary, but I'm more interested in what he'll have to say about Poltergeist and Eaten Alive, considering Poltergeist hasn't had a proper special edition yet and Dark Sky Films didn't have his participation on their Eaten Alive release.

- Master Class of Horror: Mick Garris, the director of Sleepwalkers and The Shining reflects on the crimson-covered career of his longtime colleague Tobe Hooper

Not much to say here, Garris is a real horror expert in addition to horror film director and truly appreciates him some Hooper. Should be good!

- Live Q&A with Tobe Hooper from San Francisco  

This may actually be a similar Q&A to the one hosted by Mick Garris at the Los Angeles screening of The Funhouse, which was transcribed here. Even if this one wasn't hosted by Garris, hopefully they cover some new stuff.

I don't think JR or I ever really thought the day would come when a special edition release of The Funhouse would come jam-packed with this much stuff. The best we thought we could hope for was a new disc with a short feature or two, maybe a single commentary track if we were lucky, and only when the Eli Roth version became a reality. That may still be a reality someday, and the silver lining is that the features would be completely different since it's two different companies. This special edition is quite a fantastic surprise and we salute Arrow Films for giving Hooper's other great classic the respect it has so long deserved.