The Funhouse

We were a bit split on this second request to come from our Patrons – Tobe Hooper’s spooky carnival film that led to Poltergeist. As Craig says about his childhood carnival experience: “They just look run down and they’re just held together with spit and shoe polish… it’s like a miracle that I’m not dead.”

Well, quite a few people end up dead in this movie, but not from the rides. Check it out and let US know what you think!

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Automatic Transcript

The Funhouse (1981)

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. Well, as we said last week is time for requests, and we put to our patrons a small poll of a few movies, I think four that, uh, we were kind of interested in doing from that request list that we maintain. And, uh, the poll gave a tie to two things.

Uh, the first one that we did last week was, Um, God. The initiation.

Craig: The Initiation. We just did that like a few days ago. 

Todd: Unforgettable film, the Initiation. And uh, this week is Toby Hooper’s, The Fun House. This is from 1981, and I believe it was his first studio picture after, well, he did Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

He did one called Eaton Alive, um, which I saw long time ago. I don’t think I’ve seen that. I remember being pretty weird. But then there’s this one, the Fun House, which seemed to get a very wide release. Wow. I, so I had seen the cover art for this movie on the shelves. And, uh, the concept is interesting to me, right.

Like horror, a fun house. Mm-hmm. Really in this one, I, I think it’s less of a fun house, more of a haunted house. I think you would call it like a ghost ride, I guess. Yeah. In a, in a carnival. I don’t know. I suppose I’m not gonna dick around with terminology, but Yeah, I had not seen it before today actually.

And, uh, that’s that You’ve seen this before though, Craig, right? Yeah. It surprises me

Craig: that you haven’t, I don’t know, I probably saw it when I was in college or graduate school, but rented. I don’t remember either the VHS or the D V D from the video store. The cover art is creepy. You know, kinda like a creepy clown kind of popping out at you.

But I think it was the name. Toby Hooper. That drew me to it. Yeah, because I am a fan. Like, you know, he did Texas Chainsaw and then just, what, a year or two after this, he did Poltergeist, which is one of my favorite movies. Like, I love that movie. So I think I was just drawn to that. I don’t know, I didn’t know what to expect.

I, I know that I’ve seen it at least once. I think I’ve probably seen it. Nah, that’s a lie. I know I’ve seen it at least a couple times, but I was happy to revisit it for this, you know, when I just watch movies f for myself, like, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not thinking about much. I’m just watching the movie.

When I watch movies for the podcast, I’m really paying attention. Like I, I’m trying to pay attention to the cinematography and the score and all of those different elements. That we might want to talk about. Um, so I was excited to watch this again, to pay attention to those things. And I’m glad I did. And I just based on your tone of voice, I feel like you didn’t like it.

Yeah.

Todd: I found the movie Maddening. I have so many notes who are like, why in the world is this happening? Why aren’t they moving? There’s just so much in here that doesn’t make sense from the motivations of the characters to why they stand in place and scream for five minutes instead of actually do something.

And it’s almost, honestly, I’m kind of surprised that. This is Toby Hooper, cuz the guy’s good. He makes good movies, but I wonder if he didn’t get into a little rut there in the beginning where he just kept going back to the kind of crazy hillbilly or crazy weird twisted family thing. Uh, that’s what Eaton the live kind of was.

Obviously that’s what Texas Chainsaw Massacre was. And this one, it’s just, it’s kind of the same. It’s this crazy Carney family that, you know, is terrorizing these people. And just like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I, I feel like he spends a lot of time on the pain of females, women screaming and crying with their mascara going down, being menaced by somebody.

And it, it’s really uncomfortable and it’s very effective in the Texas Chainsaw massacre. Like really effective. You feel so bad for that woman. And then you hear some of the backstory of how, you know, how he was shooting it. And it’s like, it was pretty miserable for that actress as well. And so, I couldn’t help but feel shades of that here, except the production is slicker.

Mm-hmm. Everything’s a little lighter in tone. Yeah. Everything is almost, I, I hesitate to say it just has shades of a kid’s movie. Yeah. If it weren’t for some of the gore and a couple of the small things that happened in here, it feels like a kid’s movie. Yet we get these long, uncomfortable scenes of just woman screaming, like in pain and in panic, or somebody like menacing him.

And then like, in one of these scenes, this woman’s gotta say some awful things to this guy to try to get her to, to leave her. Uh, you know, and, and I, it just tonally it’s off for me. And also it just, Like not realistic. Like of course, you know, we talk about where’s the line, right? Most of the movies we watch are not realistic.

Of course in the horror movies, everybody runs upstairs when they should be going out the door. But this movie had a hell of a lot of that in it. Yeah. And it got annoying by the end of it. Like, why is this person standing in place? Why are they not doing the obvious thing? And I think I was so distracted by those things that um, I got kind of bored.

I just, I tuned off, I turned off a little bit. And that’s a shame because actually I think the movie, like I said, it’s well made. It’s got some interesting things in, it’s got some interesting cinematography. It kind of bounces between really good inspired cinematography and really bland stuff. And then the final sequence, oh, I know we’re gonna get to all this, but my God.

The final sequence. I’m just looking at my watch. Is this over yet? Am I supposed to be terrified and, and I’m watching, I, I read a, a review online, a couple reviews online that were just so glowing about this movie, contemporary Reviews, you know, there was saying, and the utter edge of your seat, nail biting, ending.

That was not where I was. I was laying half down in the sofa, buried under cushions by the end of the, well, watching the ending of this movie and, and couldn’t wait for it to be done. So I don’t know. That sounds very uns charitable, but we’ll see. We’ll see once we pick it apart and walk through it. Yeah, no,

Craig: I, I didn’t hate it.

Uh, and I should have, because once again, our wires got a little bit crossed and I thought we were doing this 12 hours from now, so I ended up having to get up at seven 15 this morning to watch this movie. Like I don’t get up at seven 15 in the morning in the summertime period. And certainly not like to get up to watch a movie.

So I should have been like, in a bad mood and not enjoying myself. I think really, uh, you’re not wrong about. The story, but uh, and, and, and I think the fact that I have like a half a page in notes, whereas usually like I have to struggle to keep it to a page. Cuz not a whole lot happens. But I mean, it’s a story about some quote unquote, Teenagers who spend the night in a shady carnival funhouse, and like, bad stuff happened, like murderers and, and stuff.

Like, I don’t know. I’m not expecting,

Todd: I know you’re not a lie dickens, right, Dick. You know, but I just want to be engaged with it, you know? And I didn’t, I just kind of got disengaged after a while cause I was scratching my head so much. I feel like sadly there isn’t a lot that I could find about this movie.

Like, the details, like, I think the trivia is pretty light on I M D B. The Wikipedia page is pretty light. Yeah. Um, I have to feel that this movie got chopped up a bit. I don’t know, it feels like there are whole scenes that I, I don’t know why they’re there. And there’s kind of like, sort of threads that just, uh, uh, like everything with Joey and his parents.

Yeah, that was weird. It just baffled me, right? That it’s just bizarre.

Craig: I wanted that to be something. It, it felt like it was going somewhere. It felt like, um, movies from our childhood that had those kinds of rambunctious kid characters. Like I thought that Joey was going to somehow become involved in the main plot, but he doesn’t like, like there’s this, this whole setup.

You know, he’s following his sister who’s on a date, a double date at a carnival or whatever, and he’s following her and he kind of sees some of the shady stuff that’s going on, but it never leads anywhere. Like, he eventually, he eventually just gets, I don’t even, what

Todd: happens to him? They, well, they keep popping back to Joey as though.

You know, this is the kind of thing you do when it’s like, oh, the cops are coming. Are they gonna find them in time? Or is this gonna be their salvation? They are staying the night in this fun house. He doesn’t know that they’re doing it, but he seems to think that maybe they are. It’s very unclear because it’s like he sees, I think he sees them go in

Craig: and not come out.

Todd: Them not come out. And, and to be clear, this is not a fun house like you and I when, when you think of a fun house, right? In Carnival, it’s something you walk through and there are mirrors, right? And it’s, this is like a dark ride. Is what it is. So there’s a track and there are cars and you go into it and it’s very, very spooky.

And then, you know, kind of circles around and comes back. These are usually, they look way cooler than they end up being. You give these cuz it’s like all fits within like a, a one trailer, you know, one one trailer. Trailer of a tractor trailer. Trailer. I know. They’re so shitty usually, but God, they look so exciting when you, when you’re standing outside and you see the giant facade.

Nevertheless, this supposed traveling carnival in Iowa has a fun house that they must have come there. Uh, I don’t know, a year before to set up they had to dig some foundation. Oh right. They had to pour concrete. They have a lower level underneath it where people are living in, they’ve got tunnels underneath with venting and, and then way too much machinery.

Yeah. It’s like a warehouse. It’s huge. Oh my God. And there’s a second floor apparently. I mean, It, it’s pretty ridiculous. But you, you just suspend your disbelief for that, I guess you have to do. Otherwise, it wouldn’t actually be that interesting.

Craig: Right. So I’m happy to see you. Well, because in real life, I mean, God, there are so many things I, I think maybe partly I’m just kind of nostalgic for this because it reminds me of a different time, like Yeah, I

Todd: know what you mean.

I live in

Craig: rural Missouri and these types of like smarmy carnivals. Yeah. Came through here. Yeah. At least once a year and

Todd: they’re so fun. Yeah.

Craig: Like when I was a kid, like I wouldn’t go near one of those today as an adult, like. I, I, no, I mean, I don’t know. I’m sure there are regulations and stuff. Y you know, the, the, it’s, they still come here every year, but go, like, thinking back when I was a kid, it was like, you see in the movies, like they just look run down and like they’re just held together with spit and shoe polish.

Like when I was a kid, I just thought it was the coolest thing and writing those rides that it’s like a miracle that I’m not dead because Right. God, I have so many good stories. First of all, that, uh, you’re right. It’s not what I would consider a fun house. I think like fun house mirrors and like, you know, the shaky floor and stuff like that.

That’s, that’s a fun house. Fun. Right. But this would be, you know, it would be like the House of Horrors and you would sit just like in a little. Buggy, you know, on, on a rail and it would take you through and silly animatronics and stuff like that. I, I have actually no memory of this, but when I was a little tiny kid, my parents took me, uh, and, and my aunt and uncle and, and their kids, we all went to something, I don’t remember if it was an amusement park or a carnival like this, but I was so young, like maybe two or something.

And they sent me and my cousin Nick, who was a year older than me, they put us in one of these buggy cars to go through this house of horse. And they just waited for us outside. And again, I, I honestly have no memory of it, but there is a picture of us coming back out, like. Like cleaning to each other, like in, in a full body embrace, like screaming.

Oh,

Todd: we were terrified. I mean, it was probably mostly dark inside. It probably lasted about 30 seconds, every few seconds or so that you’d trip some light that would come up probably and illuminate like a skeleton. Maybe one animatronic in the whole thing. They, they were usually pretty lame when you, when you went through ’em, but, uh, it’s been a lot in those, right?

Craig: It’s like a poor man’s, it’s a small world, you know, like it’s right. It’s super silly. Um, but man, even though I don’t remember that, like, just the picture makes me so happy and my parents. That’s so cool. My par I know my parents were cool parents. They,

Todd: they were. And you were by yourselves.

Craig: I know. It was awesome.

And then another story, uh, the, the janky carnival. Here in town. For some reason my mom took us, I, I don’t remember, maybe we were going to like see a concert or something and she’s like, you can go ride a couple rides or whatever. But it was kind of like cloudy, like a storm was coming in and so she was like, you can go like, you know, ride some rides or whatever, but I don’t want you to get on any of the big high rides cuz it looks like there’s a storm coming in.

And me and my sister were like, that’s fine, whatever. And then we went and I convinced my sister, like, sh she’ll never know. Let’s just go on, you know, one of these big tall rides. And we got on it, the storm like immediately rolled in, like lightning crashing all around us, me and my sister up. Like, I don’t know, two, three stories high in this thing.

Both of us crying and I just remember looking down and my mom’s had come to find us and she was standing down there with her arms crossed, just glaring at us. And I knew we were in so much trouble, but I loved those kinds of carnivals. So maybe I was just, uh, maybe I was just nostalgic for it.

Todd: Well, I mean, I lo look, uh, the first few minutes of this movie, I really liked it.

It had promise. It was a little derivative, but it was fun. And it’s the kind of thing I like. You see this black gloved hand and this kid’s bedroom, and this kid is obviously really into horror and their masks and things on the wall and models and stuff and posters. And then there’s like real weapons like maces and apparently a knife and a sheath and all kinds of stuff on the wall.

And this black glove goes and grabs one of those knives out and a clown mask from the top and puts it on and it’s. Total copycat of Halloween. Yeah. Now you see through his eye holes and so we know it’s a kid. It’s, it’s totally fine. I liked it. And then cut to his sister, who I see in a bathrobe turning on the shower and I’m like, surely this girl is not gonna get naked because she looks way too young to have a topless scene in this.

And, uh, she does, uh, she takes her top off and I, she, she was 19. I looked it up. She was 19.

Craig: Yeah. I was kind of shocked by that. I mean mm-hmm. Toby Hooper doesn’t shy away from anything. Um, but I was surprised four minutes in. What surprises me more is that that, uh, suggested to me that it was gonna be a certain type of movie that then it was not at all.

Like these are the only boobs you see in the whole movie. And the rest of it, I would say is, Pretty darn tame. Yeah. Like if someone were to make an argument for why it should be rated r I think I would have to concede, but there are really only a couple of things. For the most part it feels very PG 13.

Yeah. It’s not super gory. Yeah. There’s not a lot of nudity. There’s no sex. Like, no. The teenagers make out like, well, uh, after she’s already shown her boobs, Amy, later in the movie, like she makes out with her boyfriend and you can tell that she had her top open. But you don’t see anything. Even, even the, uh, kills and violence are, are not gory.

There’s a little bit of blood, but not very much at

Todd: all. Yeah. They’re not as gory as we’re used to seeing. That’s true. And it

Craig: almost feels like the, the violence in gore feel like the kind of stuff that you would see. In one of these horror houses or whatever, like, like a dummy with an ax in its head, like, right, that’s the kind of violence that we’re

Todd: talking about.

That’s true. Well, I want to finish talking about this because there’s a, there’s a thing here that comes up later. So he, he approaches her and it’s total psycho like, uh, homage where he whips open the curtain and he goes in after her sister, but, and his sister, and then she holds his hand up and there’s this sort of struggle as the knife goes to her stomach and then it bends.

So it’s a rubber knife. And, uh, she screams at him, tears his mask out, chases him out into the hallway and gets him in a closet and yells at him and says, just for that, I’m not taking you to the carnival on Saturday. And while I’m there tonight, you think about this, I’m gonna get even with you. You’re not gonna know when or where, but I’m gonna get you so bad.

You’re never gonna forget it. Never. Alright. And I made a note of that. So she’s chatting with her parents downstairs and they’re just kind of watching television and, uh, they’re warning her not to go. She better not go to the carnival tonight because those carnivals are dangerous. And this very carnival, like some killer was there, somebody died, you know, when it was two little girls going

Craig: to another town or something

Todd: missing.

Yeah. Yeah. And she lies and tells em, oh no, I’m just going to the movies with my, with this guy Joey overhears it, it says like you were a liar. And then, uh, they end up at the carnival. So she piles in a car with, uh, A couple other people. Uh, it’s her and Buzz is her boyfriend, bad boy. Her 40 year old boyfriend.

Yeah,

Craig: old. He’s supposed to, he’s supposed to be a teenager. I saw the actor was 30 when he played it. And he looks at least 30

Todd: and she looks as 19 as she is. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. And then there’s Liz, her friend of the Blonde and Richie, the goofball. I guess he’s kind of the, I guess whatever.

Craig: They’re just another couple.

I mean, they just seem like nice kids, like mm-hmm. None of them have any particular interesting qualities as characters. They just seem like nice, fun-loving kids going, you know, on a double date to the carnival. It’s, it’s cute. Yeah. And another reason that I thought that the Joey thing would amount to more is because.

He was such a cute kid. Like I was interested in, what was I, I wanted him to be more of a part of the movie. But did you I I haven’t my, did I recognize him? No. Should I have, yeah.

Todd: Who was he? He was one, uh, I can’t remember the kid’s name. Uh, will or or the other one in Jim? I think Jim. Yeah. In something Wicked This way comes.

Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s one of, that’s funny. It’s one of the few rolls he’s had. I think he’s only had three rolls. It was this one. Something Wicked This Way comes and something else, and that’s it.

Craig: So this must have been before something wicked? Yes. I think. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah, that makes total sense.

Couple years. Super, super cute kid.

Todd: Yeah. And then, and then what we get is just, um, and I, I don’t know, you know, I liked it. Uh, a whole bunch of carnival footage. Yeah. My

Craig: notes say fun carnival stuff.

Todd: Yeah. And I just like seeing that. And plus it’s classic carnival stuff. It’s like, like you said, old rides. I read that, that they just got bought out a whole bunch of rides from an old defunct carnival in Akron, Ohio.

And these rides were like from the forties and fifties, you know, so they’re not super modern, but they’re, they look fun. Yeah. They’re going around the merry-go-round and they’re doing the grab the ring thing, which I only heard about from my dad. I, I, I thought that wasn’t even a thing as, as we got older.

But, uh, when you’re riding around in the merry-go-round and there’s like a, a ring, like just kind of out of reach and you’re supposed to go out and try to grab it with your finger, did you ever do that? Did you ever see anything like that?

Craig: No. But it’s like the central metaphor in Catcher in the Rye, so I’m very familiar with

Todd: it.

Well, that’s true. You’re right. Yeah, you’re right. English teacher.

But at the same time, It’s almost comic. And this is why I said it sounds like an old mo, like a kid’s movie. It’s almost comical. There’s a comically weird old hag lady that just kind of, yeah, springs on the girls in the bathroom and it’s like God is watching you. He hears everything and there’s like old bummy type guy who we see just once or twice, it looks weird, stumbles into the girls at one point and you’re like, oh, is he gonna come back again?

Nah, not really. Nah. And then it’s just so dumb because every time they come to something new, Amy stops and like goes off into Lala land, like the carnival barker is going, you know, come inside, see the two-headed cows, see the freaks of nature. And she’s just staring at him and the music swells and it’s like he has her hypnotized and I’m like, Then, then somebody’s like, Hey Amy, you ready to go?

Oh, oh yeah. All right, here we go. And she does it for that guy and she does it for the Barker outside the adult dancing girls tent. And she does it just looking at the fun house. She does it looking at the Frankenstein guy, like, this happens like six times this same shot. Um, and I was like, come on. What, what?

What’s the deal with Amy? God, I

Craig: don’t remember that specifically, but like what you’re talking about is what I think saves this movie. Like I think that it’s really stylistic. I see Toby Hooper in this movie, like sure, he shoots from interesting. Angles, he lights scenes in really interesting ways. Mm-hmm.

And watching this, I was like, yep, this is the guy who’s gonna make Poltergeist in a couple of years. It’s, it’s the same kind of creepy stuff like the, the scene in Poltergeist with the clown that attacks Robbie that could have been in this movie. Yeah. Like, it, it feels, I I, I just see, I don’t know, I I’m probably giving the movie too much credit cuz it’s not great.

I mean, it’s a really simple story and it’s especially, oh God, when we get to the villain, I, I villain I guess, is he, I don’t know.

Todd: No, probably not.

Craig: Not really. Kind of, not really. It, it, it gets a little silly and it is very simple, but I wasn’t bored because I was so visually interested in what I was seeing.

Most of the time, I don’t remember long shots of her, but I do remember really interesting shots of the props and the set

Todd: pieces. Yeah. There’s a two-headed cow. There’s a giant fetus in a

Craig: jar. I was fascinated like, I mean like they go into this freak show where the barker outside, by the way, there are like three different things.

There’s the Freak show, the Girly Show, and The Fun House. The Fun House, the Magic show. There’s also, right, and they each have their own barker and the Barker is played by the same guy. Yeah. I don’t think that I noticed that. Ever before. And, and I think that I only noticed it, uh, reading the trivia about it because the, the guy who took the role took it on the condition that he could play all of the Barkers.

And if you notice, it just kind of gives it kind of a surreal quality. I don’t know. I,

Todd: I don’t know. It is surreal. I agree with you that it’s stylistic in its own way. It’s not artsy, stylistic, it’s just kind of Yeah. Typical Toby Hooper, honestly. Yeah. Eating the Alive, if I remember eating the Live, well, you’re gonna fricking eat that movie up because I remember it like this Times a hundred with just crazy ass lights, crazy ass camera angles, really, uh, odd, surreal things happening.

Uh, we should do that sometime, but I don’t know, for me, like, I was kind of ready for the action to start after a while. We’re like 30 minutes in and we spent a lot of time at the carnival and I, I maybe, I just feel like. And maybe I’m wrong, but I felt like he was trying to build this atmosphere as this carnival, as being this dangerous, scary place.

What the carnival that I saw was pretty normal. It’s kind of seedy. It’s, yeah, it’s rather silly. You know, there’s this magician in there who looks like Beetlejuice. He’s, he’s drinking during the performance. He’s not at all sinister, right. There’s, there’s a fortune teller and he goes to her and. Instead of this being your typical fortune telling scene where she gives some premonition about what’s about to happen.

Like she’s, you can see a reach under the table and flip a light off and, and then she gets angry because the kids are laughing at her. Ah, here you bra, bra. I

don’t come back, girl. Break every bone in your fucking bodies. Like these are very normal people. You know what I mean? Like they’re typical, honestly, typical Carnival people. Not

Craig: really. I loved Madam Zena. Madam Zena was pretty awesome. And she is, she’s an Oscar nominated actress. I’m not kidding. Wow. Uh, in real life.

She is a Oscar nominated actress, and I looked at her, uh, I M D B page and she has tons of credits and I recognized a couple of things. She was in the one off the top of my head. She was in She Devil with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep. She, she played a character role in that. I recognize, I liked her and I, I liked this about it, that the Carnival people were stereotypical but also not necessarily portrayed as evil.

Correct. More just kind of like opportunistic and dealing with things as they. Happen,

Todd: you know? Yeah. Like, and they have a bad day and they kind of lose their Exactly. Their face and Yeah. I mean, I, what I was really hoping was that these would all be setups with payoffs later. Right. It did occur to me, maybe the whole point of this was just to emphasize how normal this carnival is.

You know how it’s not an evil No. You know, sinister carnival and, and that must be the point. But we’re 30 minutes into this horror movie. We’re a third of the way through it. Yeah. Nothing horrible has happened.

Craig: No. Yeah. It takes a while to get to anything. The carnival stuff, like the girly show, like, I enjoyed that.

That was fun to watch. Um, they, they just used, you know, of course, uh, strippers, um, local strippers, they hired to be in that. And it was cute and funny. And again, it, it calls that’s even before my time. I don’t know, maybe it was going on when we were kids, but not in my local carnival. There was not a girly show.

Um, but you know, it was a thing and yeah. I, I, why? Why do I have nostalgia for things that I didn’t even experience? Like it’s just like a different time. Like it just seems, it seems like such a more innocent time. You know, when, when

Todd: this was your entertainment,

Craig: husbands would come home from work at the factory and go see scantily clad girls, you know, like,

Todd: I don’t know.

Right. Well, you’re a Midwestern boy too. And, and you know, you’ve lived in, you grew up in rural America. It’s true. And there isn’t a lot to do in rural America. And that was sort of the point. That’s very true. The traveling carnival, you know? Yeah. You, I guess they would come outskirts of cities, but the heart was in the heartland.

And, you know, this was when you get to see the, the promise of seeing things and experiencing things, you could maybe only see an experience once a year because you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

Craig: So they’re bringing in these exotic Right. That’s why even like the, they, there’s literally a two-headed cow in this movie.

Yeah. And, and a, a cow with a cleft palate, which is. Surely unfortunate for that cow, but I was just, it, like, you, you don’t see stuff like this. I don’t know. There like, that added a certain reality factor and, and a certain, because it felt a little more real. It gave it a little bit more grit. Like I believe that this carnival exists.

Exists now. Yeah. So the guy who runs the interest, uh, entrance to the fun house wears a Frankenstein mask, and he’s featured prominently throughout this first part, not doing anything other than, you know, like letting people off and on the ride, but, I certainly got the feeling that this guy is gonna be important.

Significant, yeah. And the fact that he’s masked adds, you know, some level of mystery. But then it just, you’re right. It does just get stupid because Richie, one of the boys is like, Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s stay the night in the fun house. Why? Like, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It

Todd: doesn’t sound like fun at all.

Craig: No, it doesn’t sound like fun at all. You’re gonna have to sneak around, be quiet, cuz it’s not like the place is abandoned. You know, like the people who work. At these places.

Todd: Live there. Stay there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So

Craig: you’re just gonna have to be quiet. Like, sure, it might be fun to make out in the fun house for an hour, but then what are you gonna do?

Todd: Right? Stupid. Yes.

Craig: Stupid. But I do have like in bold, like I bolded it so I wouldn’t forget to say it. The movie looks better. Okay. I I. There. Let’s stay in the fun house. Next note. Definite Poltergeist vibe in the Fun House. Next note in Bold. This movie looks better than its time for 1981. I feel like this movie looks like it could have been made yesterday.

Like you think so? I think so. In terms of the cinematography, it’s clean. That’s true. Granted, this is earlier in the movie, when we start to get into the quote unquote monster. Different story does not look modern or contemporary at all. But up to this point, it just, I’m just really impressed with Toby Hooper.

I don’t really think of him. When I think of great filmmakers, I don’t immediately think, oh, Toby Hooper, but Steven Spielberg does. Yeah. And Steven Spielberg is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.

Todd: You know, he, he wanted Toby Hooper to direct. I

Craig: know. Can you imagine?

Todd: I can’t even imagine.

And he didn’t because he was busy on this movie. Right.

Craig: Well, and then there’s the whole deal. We’ve talked about this before. It’s been a long time, but we’ve talked about it before. Toby Hooper directed Poltergeist, but people say all the time, really, Steven Spielberg directed it, but I don’t know. I, I believe that Toby Hooper directed it probably with a lot of help from his friend, which like great.

And I do see, uh, Spielbergian aspects in that movie, particularly when it comes to the relationships between the family. But, The movie looks like a Toby Hooper movie. It does. And I l again, it’s one of my favorite movies. I can’t believe we have done like seven. I was gonna say 700. That’s, that’s overshooting.

We’ve done like 300 and some episodes and we’ve never done Poltergeist. It’s one of my very crazy favorite movies. Crazy. I think it’s, I know, but I think it’s because I’m. I would never be able to stop talking about it, but the, I still think this movie looks great, at least up until this point. Um, and then my next note.

Excellent aerial shot of the carnival at closing. Yes. That’s really cool. Cool. There are some amazing crane shots in this movie,

Todd: and that’s revisited later. But I, I, I also made a note about that. I think this is when Joey is alone there, the kids were already inside the fun house and, and Joey looks up at the fun house and is freaked out, and then suddenly the creaking man and came on top of it, scares him, and then suddenly the old hag ladies behind him and goes, boo.

And then he like, runs away and climbs a fence out of the place and, oh God, it’s so dumb. But anyway, then he decides, I dunno, break into a car. It’s so weird because whatever’s happening with Joey, we cut away from it right away and we go right back into the kids making out in the fun house. And maybe your screen was a little smaller than mine, but the, you could see her boobs again in there.

Oh, not that I was looking, but uh, they were there. Sure, boy. Of course not both of them.

Craig: No, I was watching it on a computer

Todd: screen. So as soon as they’re done making out, they hear something or they look down through the floorboards of this foot house and there’s somebody down underneath that turns out there’s a whole other level to this.

It must be. Underground.

Craig: A basement. Yeah. At this traveling fun

Todd: house. Traveling. Incredible. But anyway, there’s this, the guy with the Frankenstein mask on and, uh, he’s going to get some money and the,

Craig: he doesn’t talk, he just mumbles. Madam Zena, you texted me. I, I had just started watching this movie and you texted me something about it and I, I don’t remember when I.

Said this to you, but I said, I only remember one scene. This was the scene. This is the one, this was hard. Forget this was

Todd: the scene that I remember. Go ahead, you explain it.

Craig: Well, I mean, it’s really kind of pathetic. Like you don’t know what’s going on with Frankenstein, but he doesn’t talk like, he only just kind of mumbles.

And he, and he kind of like Bumbles around, um, a little bit, but he’s like taking money out of the cash box. And at first he tries to give her a 20 and she’s like, no, that’s not enough. And he tries to give her a 50. Nope, nope, it’s not enough. And he finally gives her a hundred. And you figure out he’s paying her for sex.

But like once he gives her the money, they lay down on the floor together and she barely touches him. I don’t remember what she says. Uh,

Todd: but she kind of starts jerking him off and then it’s like, oops. Oh, well I guess it happens to the best of

Craig: us. Yeah. I don’t even know if he had gotten out of his pants yet.

Like, yeah, but he must have because she, like, she wipes her hand off, wipes her hand. It’s so

Todd: gross.

Craig: That’s the part that I remember now. I think that ultimately the reason that I, this, I just don’t know how to feel about this because after that I think he wants to try again or he wants the money back or something.

But she’s resistant and he kills her. Yeah. And the kids see all this, and then they, there’s a whole scene of them like running around trying to get out and apparently they can’t. And then in the next scene they end up exactly where they were before. Did you notice

Todd: that? Yes. In the same poem was so weird.

Right? That’s why I thought there was some editing problems or maybe some, something changed in the editing with the, the script. Like why did these kids then hunker back down

Craig: exactly where they were before, right? Yeah. Right above. I don’t know. Oh, okay. And, and Joey sneaks back in, like, I’ve got notes about Joey, but nothing happens with him.

No. He sneaks

Todd: back into the carnival, that’s it. And now they’re, we’re back inside the fun house, which apparently has a second story. They’re like climbing around up and down stairs. I think they go back down and for some reason they think if they can cut through that room, they can find a way out. So they walk through it.

Uh, and then, like you said, they’re back in that spot. Uh, that’s when exact same

Craig: spot right above the room.

Todd: And that’s when the Barker comes in, uh, downstairs. So here’s the thing, he, this, this guy, when he kills this woman, pushes her up against an electric box, which makes it spark, okay. Right. And turns on all the lights, which were previously off inside there, and kind of makes all the animatronics go for a while.

But then, When he walks in, the lights are off, but up above where the kids are, they’re lit by all the stuff around them.

Craig: It looks great. It’s a great shot. They’re

Todd: like, I mean, that’s a great shot, but it doesn’t make

Craig: sense. No, it doesn’t make any sense, but it looks great. They’re like in front of, uh, it looks almost like stained glass or something.

Yeah, like carnival lights behind them. Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense why they’re there, but it looks great.

Todd: Yeah, it does. It’s a great tableau. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna deny that at all. Well, he flips those, switch back on somehow and then he like looks around, he sees the girl and he goes, oh, you really did it this time.

You killed one of the family. And he starts slapping him around like crazy. And then he is like, oh, you know what? We’ll dump her somewhere and we’re gonna blame it on the locals. But then you paid her a hundred dollars. Jesus. I could have got you one of them 10 girls for 15. Yeah. You never did understand the value of a dollar, did you?

Craig: Yeah. I thought that was funny too. But when he is, when he is yelling at him and, and like punishing him or whatever, he, I don’t remember if he somehow the mask, the Frankenstein mask comes off. Mm-hmm. Uh, and you see that under that mask kind of inexplicably because the, the, the mask that he actual, like that is supposed to be, his actual face is like two times as big as the Frankenstein mask was.

So I’m not really sure how, how that fit over his face, but he’s got this monstrous face. You know, we, you and I talk about this, I, I, I don’t think a movie would, like this would even be made today. No. This, uh, was not at all uncommon, like monstrous, um, supposedly deformed. People being Right. Villains, uh, in movies.

Like I just, I, I think that our culture is just too sense. Like people would come out of the woodworks. He is a human being and it’s not his fault that Right. He was born that way. And like, I get it. Even, even me watching it, like I, I feel bad for him. Yeah. I, I, I like, I felt bad for

Todd: this guy, but this guy crosses the line.

He’s almost like a vampire. He’s not just like a. I mean, he is deformed. Deformed, yeah. Oh yeah. Like, like he’s got yellow eyes that are bugged out. And like you said, his face is almost split down the middle and he’s, he looks

Craig: very much like the cow. I, I, I definitely imagine that that was intentional. He looks very much like the cow that had the cleft palette.

Todd: He’s like a, a quote unquote freak. Right. Like a surface freak. Uh, really? And, uh, he’s like sloth in a way from goodies. Yes. But Right, but, and, and not even mean, but that’s the thing.

Craig: Like he seems right. No, he just seems. Childlike and, and doesn’t know the appropriate way to deal with people, obviously.

Todd: Yeah.

But in all this commotion, he’s like being, they finds out all the money’s missing. So he gets pissed. Uh, he’s like, didn’t, what? What did you do with the money? Where’s the rest of the money? And he flips out. They’re making all this noise. He’s torn his mask out, and in the meantime, one of the kids lighters falls on the ground from upstairs, and he hears that over the commotion that’s going on anyway.

All right, fine. It’s a movie. So he turns around, he discovers the lighter and looks up and realizes there must be somebody up there. And now the kids are in trouble. Oh, in the meantime, Joey’s outside prowling around a little bit more kind of bored. I’m thinking, oh, he’s gonna find a way in to the fun house.

Mm-hmm. And like, he’s gonna be their way out, or he is gonna meet up with them, or something’s gonna happen. Well, the doors are still locked from the outside, but he finds one of the flags in the front, which is draped over kind of the bottom skirt of it. He lifts it and there’s like a hole there. And when he starts to peer into the hole, that monster guy reaches out at him and, and he flips out.

And he backs up. He doesn’t come out, he just reaches out at him and then he backs into the old hag and a a bum. And one of the carneys grabs him anyway and whisks him away. Now we’re back to the kids inside. Right? Who by the way, it just, why did that,

Craig: why did that happen? Well, I don’t know. And because I say he, he’s scared and he gets grabbed by Carney’s and then the only other thing that happens is like, they call his parents and his parents come get him and some, oh God, some weird guy like I, that scene that was whoever it was that called his parents, this guy that found him.

Why is Joey unconscious?

Todd: Do, yeah, I have no idea.

Craig: I don’t remember. I don’t, I have no idea. I don’t know. But this guy’s like, He’s like, I found him and I cleaned him up real nice and he is like stroking the kid’s face. Meanwhile, the kid’s parents are standing right there. I’m like, what is happening? Like, why is this weird guy stroking

Todd: your child?

They think it’s as weird as we do clearly. And they’re like, well, I guess we’ll just take him home. But they’re not moving a muscle. Wouldn’t they by now have had him in their arms and been walking out to the car? I don’t know. It’s bizarre. It’s so weird. They’re just standing there staring. And like I said, there’s so many shots of Amy just standing and staring and we’re back to the kids inside the fun house and they’re making no great efforts to get out of this.

Well, they’re trying, but not really. They sit down, I mean, sit, the doors are like padlocks and stuff. Sit, chat with each other, like, I suppose.

Craig: Well, at the, you know, I, I, I jumped a little bit ahead because by the time that Joey is being stroked by her creepo, Amy is like, they, they’re being chased around.

Like they’ve seen the monster, they’re being chased around and she tries to scream at her parents through an industrial fan and they can’t hear her.

Todd: Yeah, it’s later, but yeah, it’s

Craig: later. But, but what’s the, the, the Barker guy tells, do they ever call him Gunther? He’s credited as Gunther. Oh

Todd: no. I never heard his

Craig: name.

Never. I keep heard calling. It’s what I’m calling him is maybe I just made it up, but that’s what I’m gonna call him from now on. He the monster guy, uh, the Barker tells Gunther to kill the Kids’s. Like, he’s like, we’re just gonna clean this up, you know, kill them and we’ll dump ’em somewhere. We’ll get outta here or whatever.

And then I don’t understand some of the things that happened, like, like, you’re right. Like they’re just, the four kids are just like sitting around chatting. Yes. When from no. A noose. Drops, drops from the ceiling right onto Richie’s head, right. And

Todd: hangs him, pulls him up into the r out of their reach, into the supposed rafters of this place.

Now this fun house is like two or three stories tall and has rafters so high up nobody can see. I, I, I just, unbelievable.

Craig: I don’t even, I don’t get it.

Todd: I, I don’t

Craig: get it either. Um, um, and, and then I guess Buzz has an ax and they, they see somebody coming in one of the cars. He’s like, I got this. And he like, axes the, and it’s Richie, so he acts as Richie in the head.

So I, I, I assume Richie was already dead, right? I assume he was already dead. He’s just

Todd: tied up on the car.

Craig: This is just nutty, like, is like, are are they setting up these traps? Because

Todd: then immediately out of nowhere, Liz just falls through a trap door.

Craig: Like, and

Todd: she’s just gone. Why in this fun house that is on a rail?

It is. It’s, it’s not a thing you can walk through. Why is there a trap door next to the railing that opens up and then closes and they they can’t, but they can’t open it up? No. Did somebody trigger that? I don’t know. Is it a tr like, do they do this all the time? Like it, it doesn’t make sense. It’s just silly movie stuff.

Well, they are a murderous carnival. No.

Craig: The bark, the Barker guy does like, he, he says, To Gunther, like, you’re all the time getting in trouble or something. I’m all I have to clean up after you like those two girls back in, whatever. And they, they had said, you know, that these twin girls had gone missing after this carnival had gone through.

That’s why Amy Stad didn’t want them to go. So they do kill people sometimes,

Todd: but, but the way, it’s not an HH Holmes situation where they deliberately set this thing up to hope that kids are gonna stay the night in here. No, they accidentally kill people sometimes, but it’s, it’s mostly set up. The way that he says it to ’em is because, well, this guy’s slow and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

And just like he killed, um, the fortune teller, he’s killed other people too, and he’s gotta clean up after him. I don’t think it’s like, the idea is that the whole carnival thing is like, On this killing spree.

Craig: No, no. That’s, that’s why I said just, you know, like every now and then they, they, they, you know, they have to take care of

Todd: things and they do.

So now, and this was confusing now, uh, like you said, Joey wi outside with his parents staring at the fun house in a daze as they’re getting ready to leave and then outta nowhere comes his thoughts, which is, I’m gonna get even with you. I’m gonna get back at you so bad that you’re never gonna forget it.

Craig: Yeah. It felt, I, I, I had no idea what was happening. It felt like it was from a different movie. Like, I, I get it that it’s a callback, but what is he thinking? Is he thinking that this is some elaborate plot that his sister has put into motion? What’s the point I have? It doesn’t make no idea any sense. And it doesn’t matter because we never see him again.

We don’t.

Todd: But yes. Which is annoying. I want you to

Craig: talk about this next part because. You, you alluded to it earlier and I was surprised by the way that you alluded to it because, um, Liz who fell through the trap door, wakes up. I have no idea where this is supposed to be. This

Todd: is supposed to be, is it, it looks, uh, it’s, it’s a narrow passageway with a bunch of pipes and things going down.

I dunno if it’s supposed to be like a ventilation system or I guess cause

Craig: there’s a giant sub fan or

Todd: there’s a giant fan at the end of it, and that’s where she is. And of course my first thought was, well just stop that fan. It looks like it leads outside. You can crawl out of it. She’s down there and she wakes up and suddenly around the corner is the monster guy and he’s coming towards her and she’s like, uh, crying and upset and begging and pleading for her life.

And she’s like, I I I heard that you like girls, like I can, I can do things for you. I, I won’t even make you pay. I It’s all right. You can. Oh my God, that was so painful. It’s disturbing. When you alluded to

Craig: her to it earlier, like she says she has to say all these horrible things, then like, I didn’t think it was that big a deal.

Like she, she, I know you like girls, I could be nice to you. You won’t, you don’t even have to

Todd: pay. As he’s coming towards her literal drool is coming out of his mouth on her. He’s leaning in close, he’s getting drool all over. He is wrapping his arm. He

Craig: disgusting. But what does it, of course it say, what does it say about me that I felt more bad for him in this moment?

Well,

Todd: he’s a sympathetic character for sure. Yeah. Like

Craig: I understand that she’s doing what she has to do. Like she’s trying to, I, I understand what she’s doing, but from his point of view, a pretty girl is being nice to him. A pretty,

Todd: a pretty girl. He is menacing is being to him, I suppose. Well, why else is he down there coming after?

Cause what? No,

Craig: you’re right, you’re right. I’m reading. I, I’m, I’m, I’m reading too much into it, but I did, I I I felt bad for him.

Todd: Like this poor guy. Well, there’s no question you’re meant to feel bad for him. He’s sort of like a Frankenstein. I mean, there’s probably no, no question why he’s got the Frankenstein mask on earlier.

Right. Right. That’s intentional. He’s supposed to be the, the sympathetic monster who just doesn’t know what he’s doing. But she, uh, somehow I guess she stab him. Yeah, I guess the, the, the dagger from knife got

Craig: down knife that there with him just found, I don’t know. There’s just a knife around there. And, and then he kills her.

Like I Yeah, question mark. Uh, but you don’t really see it. You don’t really see it

Todd: happen. No, actually it’s a cool angle where, You don’t see it, but you see kind of from above and her, it’s obscured a little bit, but then you see his hand raised a couple times and his fingernails are all bloody and yeah, it’s pretty clear she’s not gonna make it.

At the same time. Dumb ass. Amy is standing in front of a huge fan. I don’t know if this is another passage away. I don’t know how she, she got there, but this fan is apparently right smack dab on the front of the fun house, and it’s about half as tall as a person is, and she’s screaming out it at her parents who she can see out there.

Uh, but the fan is too loud so her screams are not carrying and they’re too far away to notice. Believeable once again, I was like, why would you not just grab something and stop that fan? Heck, I mean, the motor and the, the belt. It’s right there in front of you, like true. Get a pipe, get something like that’s your best way out, right?

That you’ve guys have found yet you stop that fan, you guys can crawl out there. Then she just leaves and they never come back to it. Yeah. I don’t know. Plus, I never saw that fan from the front of the building. I couldn’t figure out where the heck it could have been ever. I don’t know. And we get a lot of shots of the front of that fun house.

Craig: You’re right that it takes a long time to get to the action, but then this ending just happens so fast. Like Yeah. Uh, the Barker guy confronts Buzz and Amy with a gun and then Buzz and the Barker fight, and the Barker guy gets impaled on a giant sword. Why would there be giant swords that stick straight out, sharp enough to entirely a bail person?

Todd: It was a different time, Craig, those carnivals, their insurance would

Craig: never approve that. And then,

Todd: no, I love, but before he dies, I love what the Barker says cuz he has this long soliloquy about family and family’s important and blood a sticker than water. And he, he’s talking about his boy and he is like, and I’m sure he is gonna be a great comfort to me in my old age.

Oh yeah. That was funny. Really? Yeah. I don’t know if that was meant to be silly or what, but, uh,

Craig: well, and then well, and then Gunther, the monster guys, you know, out of nowhere. Yeah. But he attacks out of nowhere and then like he and Buzz kind of tussle off screen, like we don’t see it and there are gunshots.

Oh. And then, and then dude, and then Buzz is dead and served up like on a, like a mechanical clown by animatronic clown. Hilarious.

Todd: That was on the track. Suddenly I look. I’m sorry. I mean, Toby Hooper is great and he knows how to stage certain things. I don’t know if fight scenes are one of them because these two little tussles between the Kearney and Buzz and Gunther were lame.

Fair enough. There is a several moments in there where Buzz is just standing there and he has a perfect opportunity where the monster’s back is to him looking at his dad to just throw him onto that sword along with him, and he just stands there whi, which is what the girls do in this movie whenever they’re confronted.

Oh yeah. With the killer and I hate that

Craig: about, yeah. Especially now that, uh, buzz is dead. Amy is just kind of walking around being scared by the fun house stuff. Oh, oh God, that’s come on. So dumb. And, and then, and then in my, I don’t even remember this. I just have in my notes. Amy is in an industrial basement.

Yes.

Todd: In my notes. I just have, where the fuck is she while she’s down there? I dunno how she got there. She, she felt, she crawled through a vent or something. And now this was, by the way, we’ve got the fun house. We have the subbasement below the Fun house where this family stays. She crawls down a even deeper to this below the subbasement of the fun house, which I guess includes all of the mechanics.

Before having it. Right.

Craig: Big exposed gears. Giant, giant

Todd: shades going by on hooks like room hook. What was that all about? There is nothing that complicated up above. Plus there is a whole floor between the actual foot house and this room, so, so yeah. So

Craig: she’s down there in this industrial basement and Gunther steam,

Todd: by the way.

Yeah, every down. Then steam is coming out like

Craig: seriously hooks on chain on a conveyor belt. Like what is this? I don’t understand. Doesn’t make any sense. But he confronts her and he screams at her cause he doesn’t talk, he just screams no

Todd: before, before he confronts her. Craig, you cannot skip this. She spends about eight minutes.

I almost timed it. It’s over five minutes. Just crawling around this room she could clearly see across. And just freak it out. Just, I don’t

Craig: remember. I, I remember her finding bodies. She finds her friend’s body with the girl that was, that was

Todd: before this. Yeah, down there. She’s by herself waiting for that guy to come down.

Oh, alright. Sorry. No, it’s okay.

Craig: Um, and so he comes down and screams at her and she hits him with the crowbar, but he grabs it and like goes to swing it at her, but accidentally gets electrocuted

Todd: like by a fuse box. And then accidentally his arm flops over onto the chain and he starts getting pulled around the room.

And what does she do? And she think she’s dead.

Craig: She stands six inches in front of

Todd: him, follows him around the room six inches away from him, freaking out.

Craig: And, and then he wakes up slowly. Does she

Todd: move? No. No. She stands, she stands right there. Screams a a bunch while he slowly reaches his hand out and grabs her.

I, I wanted to throw my computer at the TV at this point was, it was ridiculous.

Craig: And I couldn’t believe, like,

Todd: and I said, I’m telling you, I read this review that said, oh, the nail biting 10 tense final scene, like, kind of makes up. I was like, are you kidding me? The final scene is stupid. I

Craig: thought it was funny.

It is stupid, but it’s kinda funny. Funny. Oh, it’s funny. And then so like, he’s, he, you know, like he’s, he’s on the hook, on the, on the, I don’t know. And he gets pulled into like these big spinning gears and uh, supposedly gets crushed or whatever. And the last scene is another. Well first she walks out and she looks at the top of the fun house.

There’s this big animatronic fat lady and it like laughs at her. Um, which is kind of funny. I read that. That’s supposed to be like, oh, it’s over cuz the fat Lady’s sang, okay, cute, whatever. And then it’s a great