The Funhouse

More or less The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a carnival. Teens go off looking for fun, find trouble (read: death at the hands of a disfigured misfit). Aside from a fun opening, the first act spends a literal 30 minutes on mundane carnival exploits with very little in the way of ominous foreshadowing. If you can get past that, then The Funhouse is a decent bit of schlocky, slasher fun (with considerably fewer clowns than you'd think).

A good cast and gorgeously saturated color photography and set design make up for the unevenness of a screenplay that never bothers to explain far too many of its loose ends and asides to the audience. The opening, spoofing both _Halloween_ and _Psycho_, is very amusing.

Might be the Hooper ur-text...

a great early 80s slasher, fun for the entire family. Even grandma!

It has some effective moments & pretty good atmosphere, most of which can be chalked up to Hooper's distinctively eerie directing style, and the villain is fairly iconic in genre lore by this point. But, there are some weird beats in the story that don't really add up & it seems to skip through some logic hoops for no real reason. The actual look of the villain has not aged well, either, & is more hilarious than scary. Still, this is a pretty fun early slasher that's definitely worth seeing.