Reflecting on Tobe Hooper and "The Funhouse"

I have been and no doubt always will be a horror film buff.

By the time I entered elementary school, I had taken in all of the old Universal monster movies (remember that epic collection the studio released in the early '90s?) and was well on my way to the bolder likes of the Halloween, Friday the 13th and Child's Play franchises.

Around this time, my family must've made at least one, maybe two weekly stops to a local video shop.

There was Blockbuster Video, of course, but even better was Banana Video, a mom and pop (actually, I think it was a mom and son) shop that was smaller than Blockbuster but sported a far more intriguing and idiosyncratic VHS collection - the likes of Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Return of the Killer Tomatoes were favorites of mine that Banana carried and Blockbuster inexplicably didn't. I rented those two and entries from the Critters and Gremlins series over and over again, as my mom wasn't quite yet ready to rent out for me classics like Black Christmas and Terror Train.

You cannot imagine how much I wanted my parents to rent this for me.

Well, one picture I always wanted to rent but wasn't allowed to was The Funhouse, Tobe Hooper's first post-Texas Chainsaw film for a major studio. (Quick plot summary for those who haven't seen the film: a quartet of teenagers spend the night in a carnival funhouse, steal some money from the carnival barker and are chased around by the barker's deformed son, who dons a Frankenstein monster mask and has no qualms about making mincemeat of them.) I was head-over-heels for the VHS cover - an axe-wielding clown emerging from a jack-in-the-box. That it took place in a carnival (I was already enamored with all things theme park) made me all the more hungry to at last see this thing.

Relegated to nothing more extreme than the PG-13 options, I would eagerly open up the local paper's TV guide every Sunday morning to see if The Funhouse was to surface on cable sometime over the coming week. For the longest time, it never did (I never caught Joe Bob Briggs' MonsterVision treatment of it on TNT) and then suddenly, out of the blue, it was scheduled to air...on none other than A&E, on a Saturday afternoon (thank heavens, not during school).

I think we were supposed to go out for a family hike but somehow, I managed to convince my parents to forgo that so I could plop in front of the tube and watch what would no doubt be a Citizen Kane-level masterpiece in cinema. And, you know what...I did love it. Madly. And my parents too were fond of it, so much so they rented out the unedited VHS for me not long down the road.

The latter half of The Funhouse is packed with sumptuously shot, genuinely terrifying scenes like this one.

Over the years to follow, I would make it a mission to catch The Funhouse every single time (which admittedly wasn't very many) it graced cable. By high school, I owned it on VHS and then of course grabbed the DVD as soon as it received that treatment. I'm still enamored with the film, warts and all (of which there are more than a few), to this day.

So, as you can imagine, my heart sank at the news that Hooper, one of the all-time great masters of horror (right up there with the likes of Argento, Brown, Carpenter, Craven, Romero and Whale), died on August 26 at the age of 74.

For years, I had so much hoped, perhaps more for him than any other filmmaker, that Hooper could somehow reemerge and score a big comeback, whether on the big screen or small screen.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist, Lifeforce and even his remake of Invaders from Mars are all among my very favorite horror/sci-fi pictures, annual must-sees that I'll no doubt be devouring closer to Halloween. That his career all but turned to dust after 1986 (when his three-pic deal with the hacks over at The Cannon Group ended) has long perplexed and saddened me. I sure have been comforted, however, by the celebration of his filmography in the hours since his passing.

One Hooper flick that hasn't been quite as name-dropped as others in his filmography is none other than The Funhouse, a picture that, despite my love and affection for it, remains something of an obscurity, even among die-hard slasher movie fans.

The common criticism I've come across with The Funhouse is the picture takes too long to get going, that there's far too much exposition on the film's horny teenagers (Elizabeth Berridge's Liz, Cooper Huckabee's Buzz, Largo Woodruff's Amy and Miles Chapin's Richie) before they finally make the decision, about a third of the way into the proceedings, to spend the evening in the creepy funhouse.

I for one, however, adore the film from start to finish.

Two-time Oscar nominee Sylvia Miles!

Unlike the bulk of the Halloween knockoffs from the early '80s, Hooper's film, written by Larry Block, aims to make us give a genuine shit about its characters, so yeah, there isn't blood and guts oozing from the screen from the opening frame. We actually get to know Berridge's Amy, her friends and her brother (Shawn Carson). We're also, later into the picture, treated to great, dialogue-heavy scenes involving the funhouse barker (Kevin Conway, in a fabulously slimy and scary performance), his deformed son (Wayne Zoba) and the deliciously trashy Madame Zena (the one and only, twice-Oscar-nominated Sylvia Miles). So, kudos to Block for not doing a lazy copy-and-paste from prior slasher flicks, as all too many were doing around this time.

While Block's script is a solid one and the film is all-around impressive from the technical perspective - marvelous cinematography by Andrew Laszlo (in his follow up to The Warriors), one hell of a score from John Beal (those opening credits!) and holy moly is the production design of the funhouse itself awesome (Mort Rabinowitz, who designed Hooper's Salem's Lot, worked on this film too) - it's really Hooper's direction that's the star of the show.

Though shit doesn't hit the fan until well over half an hour into the picture, there is an aura of danger and eeriness in the air from the moment the teens enter the carnival. Even before they enter the funhouse itself, there's a palpable feeling of claustrophobia that turns downright suffocating once they're actually inside, and with no apparent way to get out.

Once the teens are on the run, Hooper delivers one gorgeously shot, scary-as-hell scene after another. Two especially horrifying scenes (SPOILER ALERT) - Liz's death, which is among the most brutal and believable to grace any slasher film (even though, per usual, the director doesn't actually show much in the way of gore), and the aftermath of a grueling fight between Buzz and the barker's son, which results in the young man's corpse being delivered, in the arms of an animatronic clown, to his petrified girlfriend. And then of course there's that brilliant final shot (not quite Texas Chainsaw-level in greatness but still pretty damn perfect) of Amy at last emerging from the funhouse, only to be greeted and laughed at by the animatronic fat clown lady that sits atop the structure.

So yeah Amy, probably no more carnival funhouses for you.

Such. A. Great. Movie.

Is it really, despite all of my tenderness for it, as amazing as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I would concede it is not. I would also, however, argue it is perhaps the very best of all of the many post-Halloween slasher films that graced cinemas in the immediate years following 1978.

Unlike the bulk of those efforts, which were delivered by filmmakers and studios focused squarely on cashing in and making a quick, modest buck on the slasher craze, The Funhouse is a film with a real vision behind it, crafted by a director who knew how to drive home the scares, worked great with actors and could assemble a crew to make his film look and sound infinitely superior to most the era's horror offerings.

Hooper's brilliance wasn't utilized nearly as often as it should've been. That said, he did give the world a pocketful of the greatest horror films to ever grace the silver screen (I, of course, would argue this one is among them) and was so incredibly influential on the genre's filmmakers who followed in the footsteps. I will so miss him.

Review: "Ingrid Goes West"

Aubrey Plaza, you rock.

Plaza, due for a satisfying film vehicle after slumming it in a pair of Zac Efron "comedies" and a handful of other middling projects, is dead-on brilliant in her latest picture, Ingrid Goes West. It's a funny, sad, scary, all-around amazing performance that deserves to (but sadly probably won't) be talked up for Oscar consideration.

The Matt Spicer-directed film, which won warm notices at Sundance earlier this year, follows Ingrid Thorburn, a young woman who lives vicariously through social media superstars. Fresh out of rehab after pepper spraying an Instagram idol who neglected to invite Ingrid to her wedding and reeling from the recent death of her mom, Ingrid bolts her humdrum existence for Venice Beach, where the latest apple of her eye -  the glamorous, seemingly perfect Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) resides.

In Cali, Ingrid manages to convincingly weasel her way into Taylor's fabulous life and inner circle. She also bonds with her Batman-obsessed (as in, the Joel Schumacher entries) landlord Dan (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), who doesn't hesitate to play boyfriend to Ingrid at Taylor's swanky house parties.

Ingrid Goes West is deliriously fun, fresh and topical over its first hour, slipping only a bit late in the game with a plot turn involving Taylor's insufferable brother Nicky (Billy Magnussen) that rings as uninspired vis a vis the prior proceedings. That said, even if the final half hour loses some of the liveliness and novelty, Plaza's still in there giving 100 percent, able to run a gamut of emotions without once striking a false note.

Also terrific are Olsen, pitch-perfect as the artificially bubbly Taylor, and Jackson, warm and witty as the picture's most emotionally grounded figure. One of the best parts of Ingrid Goes West is that relationship that blossoms between Ingrid and Dan, a bond that builds without the need for any of that pesky social media.

This is in ingenious comedy that sports one of the year's finest leading turns.

A-

Review: "Detroit"

During the summer of 1967, amidst no shortage of unrest between the city of Detroit's overwhelmingly black populace and overwhelmingly white law enforcement, a police raid of an unlicensed bar, and the chaos that quickly erupted among authorities, patrons and passersby, gave way to a five-day riot, one of the deadliest and most destructive in the nation's history.

Buildings across the city were looted or lit up in flames or both and police had no hesitation in pulling a trigger, even against those simply stealing groceries. By the end of the mayhem, 43 were dead with more than 1,000 injured.

Kathryn Bigelow's aggravating Detroit shines a spotlight on one particularly savage event that transpired over the pandemonium.

On the evening of July 25, in the annex at the city's Algiers Motel, teenager Carl (Jason Mitchell) takes out a starter gun to demonstrate to his friends how a police encounter really goes down in Detroit. He goes so far as to take a few shots out the window at National Guard forces, who are stationed about half a mile a way.

This quickly draws the attention of police, among them the sadistic Krauss (Will Poulter) who, with a pair of his fellow racist cop buddies, barnstorms the house, lines all inhabitants up against the wall and proceeds to subject his prey to what amounts of physical and psychological torture. There's the headstrong black security guard Melvin (John Boyega) who thankfully comes upon the motel but he too must tread very carefully in what has become Krauss' House of Horrors.

Detroit isn't without its merits. The performances, with the exception of a dreadful and distracting late cameo by John Krasinski (this year's Matthew Broderick in Manchester by the Sea), are all-around phenomenal. I was especially taken with Boyega, who has a powerful screen presence even when he says nothing at all - there's a sense of suppressed indignation there than is plenty palpable throughout the proceedings. And Poulter, with his devilish, Nurse Ratched-like eyebrows, is one scary piece of shit. Kudos too to Barry Ackroyd's fine cinematography.

That said, I had a lot of problems with this picture.

I sensed trouble on the horizon from the get-go with the film's curiously animated opening sequence, which spells out to the audience - like we were born yesterday - what brought about racial tensions in Detroit. Then, there's the uninvolving and unfocused opening half hour, which introduces far too many characters too quickly and uneasily tries to intertwine real-life stock footage of the events into the proceedings.

The middle of the picture, in which Krauss turns the Algiers into the motel from hell, has that same harrowing intensity of past Bigelow pictures. As isn't the case in her best films (like Zero Dark Thirty and Blue Steel), however, that feeling of exasperation here goes on so long that it ultimately turns into restlessness. The potency of the performances keep the proceedings gripping at some level but there comes a point where the violence and Poulter's histrionics veer on the excessive.

Then, there's the final half hour of the picture, which feels even more half-baked than the opening 30 and doesn't much resemble Bigelow's vivid style of filmmaking at all. Instead, I was reminded of Rob Reiner's workmanlike '60s civil rights yarn Ghosts of Mississippi, which too sports a few fabulous performances but gets awfully sleepy when it turns into a courtroom drama. 

Was Bigelow, in the end, the best director for this project? I typically adore her but I'm unconvinced. She is a great filmmaker of actors and has captured one of the year's finest ensembles here. The picture, however, is not as confident or satisfying as nearly all of Bigelow's past films and the ferocity with which she directs often feels intemperate here.

Detroit is a bumpy endeavor to say the least.

B-

Review: "Girls Trip"

You'll never look at a grapefruit the same way again...

Girls Trip, the first truly gut-busting comedy of 2017, is a fabulous showcase for its four dynamite leading ladies. Comparisons will no doubt be made between this and fellow ensemble hit Bridesmaids but the latter, enjoyable as it may be, seems merely sitcom-level vis a vis this picture. This is a raunchier, bolder and all-around more satisfying romp.

The film follows the "Flossy Posse" of college besties - Ryan (Regina Hall), Sasha (Queen Latifah), Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Dina (Tiffany Haddish) - as they reunite in New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, where Ryan, a best-selling author, has been tapped to deliver a keynote address. Hilarious hijinks of course ensue as the foursome drink, dance, romance and get their wild sides back in action but the proceedings hit a number of serious notes too.

Ryan's friends see right through her phony marriage to retired football star Stewart (Mike Colter), who has been caught yet again hooking up with another woman (who, of course, happens to also be in New Orleans for the event, setting up an inevitable brawl). There's also plenty of tension bubbling beneath the surface between Ryan and Sasha, years ago on track for a joint business venture that fell through when Ryan went out on her own. Now, Sasha runs a trashy celebrity gossip blog that barely pays the bills.

Director Malcolm D. Lee and screenwriters Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver pull off a commendable balancing act in delivering the raucous laughs while also hitting home on a more dramatic level.

All four stars are in prime form. Haddish all but owns the first half of the film with a side-splittingly funny performance that threatens to upstage the rest of the picture. But then it's Hall who really shines in the second half, as the proceedings take that more serious turn and Lee, Barris and Oliver tackle the topic of infidelity with great wisdom and nuance. Smith is terrific too as the divorced single mom most struggling to at last let loose. And we of course cannot forget Latifah, who, with some absinthe and a lamp, lands one of the film's funniest and most memorable moments.

Girls Trip isn't absolute perfection - there are a handful of gags and scenes that don't quite land - but still, as a vehicle that gives its four super-talented stars a rich opportunity to shine and make us laugh our asses off for two hours, it's well worth a look.

B+

Review: "Dunkirk"

For more than a week over the summer of 1940, toward the beginning of World War II, German forces trapped Allied troops - a mix of British, French, Belgian and Dutch - on the beaches of Dunkirk, France. Through naval and civilian vessels, more than 330,000 troops were safely evacuated.

Christopher Nolan's much-anticipated Dunkirk - his first picture since the polarizing Interstellar in 2014 - captures this event in spellbinding fashion. His film is a master class in cinematography, sound and film editing and, while not quite on the level of masterpieces like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Das Boot, is still among the finest World War II pictures to grace the screen.

The proceedings are captured from three perspectives, one on land, one at sea and one up in the air.

On land, you have Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British private who escapes enemy fire on the streets of Dunkirk and flees to the beach, determined to climb aboard a boat and at last get home. Boat after boat is attacked, including an abandoned ship utilized by the enemies for target practice.

At sea, there is Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance, far more compelling here than in his Oscar-winning Bridge of Spies turn), a kind and calm sailor on a mission with his son and a friend to assist in the evacuation. The trio encounter a battered solider (Cillian Murphy), the sole survivor of a U-Boat attack. Upon realizing the boat is en route to Dunkirk and not home, the soldier grows hostile, to tragic consequences.

Up in the air are a trio of pilots (among them Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden) determined to take down German planes and prevent the bombing of allied boats at Dunkirk.

Nolan does a superb job intertwining the three - though the proceedings are very much nonlinear, it's a far more accessible picture than the likes of Memento, Inception and Interstellar, which no doubt left some moviegoers feeling lost at sea.

While the acting is all-around terrific, particularly from Whitehead and Rylance, the lack of character development makes Dunkirk a marginally less emotionally involving film than some past war pictures. Still, that's a slight knock when the movie is so magnificent from a technical perspective. Kudos to Hoyte van Hoytema for his glorious photography, Lee Smith for tight, pitch-perfect film editing and the legendary Hans Zimmer for one of his most intoxicating scores to date.

Is Dunkirk the best Nolan picture? Truth be told, I do prefer both The Dark Knight and Insomnia. That said, it's still one hell of an achievement, a stirring, sweeping picture full of sequences guaranteed to go down as some of the year's best.

A-