MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Up 606 this week

The Funhouse (1981)

 -  Comedy | Horror  -  13 March 1981 (USA)
5.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 5.7/10 from 5,994 users  
Reviews: 119 user | 104 critic

Four teenage friends spend the night in a carnival funhouse and are stalked by a deformed man in a Frankenstein mask.

Director:

Writer:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1177 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 3627 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 1024 titles created 10 months ago
 
a list of 724 titles created 10 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Funhouse (1981)

The Funhouse (1981) on IMDb 5.7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Funhouse.

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Carrie (1976)
Horror | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl discovers she has telekinesis, and gets pushed to the limit on the night of her school's prom by a humiliating prank.

Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

The unburied dead return to life and seek human victims.

Director: Tom Savini
Stars: Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles
Zombie (1979)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

Strangers looking for a woman's father arrive at a tropical island where a doctor desperately searches for the cause and cure of a recent epidemic of the undead.

Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson
Phantasm (1979)
Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

A young boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a mysterious arsenal of terrible weapons with him.

Director: Don Coscarelli
Stars: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister
The Evil Dead (1981)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.

Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor
Hellraiser (1987)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover, who's being chased by demons after he escaped from their sado-masochistic Hell.

Director: Clive Barker
Stars: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence
Suspiria (1977)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction.

Director: Dario Argento
Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci
Death Trap (1977)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.2/10 X  

A psychotic redneck who owns a dilapidated hotel in rural East Texas kills various people who upset him or his business, and he feeds their bodies to a large crocodile that he keeps as a pet in the swamp beside his hotel.

Director: Tobe Hooper
Stars: Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

In the dreams of his victims, a spectral child murderer stalks the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.

Director: Wes Craven
Stars: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

A young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where after a series of supernatural 'accidents', she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell.

Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale
Demons (1985)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.5/10 X  

A group of people are trapped in a large movie theater in West Berlin that is infected by ravenous demons who proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one, thereby multiplying their numbers.

Director: Lamberto Bava
Stars: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny
Candyman (1992)
Horror
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.5/10 X  

The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.

Director: Bernard Rose
Stars: Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
Shawn Carson ...
Jeanne Austin ...
...
...
Largo Woodruff ...
Liz
Miles Chapin ...
David Carson ...
Sonia Zomina ...
Ralph Morino ...
Truck Driver (as Ralph Marino)
...
Freak Show Barker / Strip Show Barker / Funhouse Barker
Herb Robins ...
Mona Agar ...
Strip Show Dancer
Wayne Doba ...
...
Edit

Storyline

Two young couples on a double date go to a mysterious carnival. As a prank they decide to spend the night in the funhouse. When they witness a brutal murder, they suddenly find themselves in horrific danger. Written by Sean V. Taylor <st52@cornell.edu>

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

night | house | carnival | murder | funhouse | See more »

Taglines:

Something is alive in the funhouse...something that, tonight, will turn the funhouse into a carnival of terror! See more »

Genres:

Comedy | Horror

Certificate:

R | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

13 March 1981 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Carnival of Terror  »

Filming Locations:


Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

| (cut) | (video)

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Reshoots of scenes took four days due to lost film footage which had got caught up in a local teamster war. Director Tobe Hooper has said that the filming of this movie in Miami / Florida occurred during the Scarface era. See more »

Quotes

Buzz Klemmet: Hey! Watch who you're calling an asshole, asshole.
See more »

Connections

References The Jazz Singer (1927) See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
Above average 1980s scare flick
8 November 2008 | by (United States) – See all my reviews

Fast-paced and atmospheric thriller set in and around the carnival midway. Two couples visiting the local traveling carnival decide to spend the night in The Funhouse and fool around as a lark. After witnessing a murder, they become the targets of a deformed maniac and his barker dad who are determined they will not leave to report it to the police. I read the Owen West (aka Dean Koontz) novelization back in the day, which was infinitely more padded with back story, abortion issues, religious fanaticism, and a rather Byzantine attempt to link the heroine and her younger brother to the killers before they ever set foot on the midway. Mercifully, the film abandons all of the excess baggage and strips the story done to the bare essentials. I enjoy Tobe Hooper's direction here much more so than that shown in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as it seems we are seeing a much more polished effort. He nicely establishes the atmosphere of the midway, which by turns is colorful and sordid. The central characters are nicely delineated (although due to the abandoning of the subplots from the novelization, Shawn Carson's younger brother seems like a fifth wheel rather than integral to the story) and well played by an appealing cast. They seem like credible and overwhelmed young people rather than fodder for the axing. Lead Elizabeth Berridge, in particular, has a nice girl next door quality and radiates a resourcefulness through her terror without ever seeming like either Superwoman or a victim. The make-up for the primary killer is particularly effective and novel. The film builds up a substantial head of steam before going for broke in a wild Grand Guignol climax. The score is also worth mentioning as it provides a very effective counterpoint to the action. Ironically, this film is rarely mentioned by horror fans, having been buried amid the morass of Friday the 13th clones that proliferated in this period, but it is definitely one that should be rediscovered.


16 of 20 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Carnival Horror Movies rduke72
So did the kid actually get to see that girl naked in the shower? jonathanstatsny
100 Things I Learned From The Funhouse judasrising666666
When was your first time? happyhaunt2005
based on Dean Koontz book? general_razor_cs-1
Picking Up Joey Verona
Discuss The Funhouse (1981) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?