Marc Chagall and The Funhouse

"...I had a chance to work with this really great production designer on The Funhouse and we were trying to make the carnival look like Chagall, with those tones and colors. The colors do something emotional to me. So I fixate on that."

- Tobe Hooper

Horror.com feature "Masters of Horror Explore the Art Hidden in the Nightmare"

A cursory glance at the works of artist Marc Chagall indeed reveals a palette of colors strongly resembling that of The Funhouse, as well as the recurring subjects of circuses and carnivals.

Courtesy of the excellent art collection website Olga's Gallery there is a collection of Marc Chagall paintings available to view online. JR and I have selected a smattering of works which struck that Funhouse chord with us, and which Hooper may have shared with production designer Mort Rabinowitz during preproduction of the film.

Bride With Blue Face

1932-1960

Bella in Mourillon

1926

Circus

1979-81

Equestrienne

1931

Flayed Ox

1947

Golgotha

1912

The Juggler

1943

Les Trois Acrobates

1926

Peasant Life

1925

The Concert

1957

The Magician

1968

Posters

The classic freak teeth and tagline. Has one of the prop monsters in the funhouse come alive? Misleading, but close enough.

Some people think this is a spoof of the Rocky Horror lips, but that never occurred to me. Rocky Horror was 20th Century Fox, not Universal.

The viewer "pays to get in," but if faced with reality in their pursuit of simulations of danger, they, as this film's tagline so cleverly deigns... - Tobe Hooper Appreciation Society

The lavish Tim Hildebrant-ish poster for Carnival of Terror, a fine alternate title in addition to tagline and trailer narration. The freak riding the carnival car and wielding an axe is an amalgamation of elements from three different scenes. Love the clown face, too.

The crack in the picture is perfectly in synch with the film's ideas - are we looking at the real danger, or is it right behind us?

                          

French title Massacres in the Ghost Train, a nice compliment to Texas Chainsaw. "Ghost Train" is an English and European term for Funhouse carnival rides on rails.

There seem to be more dead bodies at the bottom of the poster than dead people in the movie.

                              

And boy, is it.

Theatrical Trailer & Rare TV Spots

"Something is alive in the funhouse. Something not alive, like it's father. Something better dead. Something that feeds on the flesh and blood of young innocents...Something that tonight, will turn the funhouse into a carnival of terror."


The TV spot contains footage entirely exclusive from the film. Why? Did Tobe Hooper himself film it? Note that the "funhouse" which Elizabeth Berridge and Cooper Huckabee enter is the more traditional walk-through funhouse as compared to the "darkride" of the film with tracks and mobile cars. That Santa rising from a coffin (?) is definitely a man, not a mannequin, and the mannequins that are featured in this spot are never seen in the actual film. As Julius Banzon of The Tobe Hooper Appreciation Society says, it's kind of adorable.


Here is a TV spot which aired in March of '81, essentially a shorter version of the theatrical trailer: