Irish Film Institute -THE FUNHOUSE

THE FUNHOUSE

Director: Tobe Hooper

USA • 1981 • COLOUR • ANAMORPHIC • DOLBY STEREO • 96 MIN


Conventional wisdom suggests that Tobe Hooper’s filmmaking career is one lengthy anticlimax following his stunning directorial debut with 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As proof that conventional wisdom is wrong, we present Hooper’s long-forgotten Hollywood debut, an atmospheric slow-burn of a slasher flick that plays like Texas Chainsaw’s ornery cousin. Jean-Luc Godard once said that all you need to make a movie is a gang of clean-cut teenagers, a psychopathic killer and a carnival funhouse — we may be paraphrasing — and here Tobe Hooper confirms that ‘auld Jean-Luc had a point. Urban legend suggests that Steven Spielberg originally asked Hooper to direct E.T., but Tobe was too busy with The Funhouse; gore hounds everywhere like to think that he made the right call.

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