Six crazed murderers enter a popular Halloween-night haunt. Next to no one exits. And that, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, is what we call The Funhouse Massacre.
Led by the charismatic cult leader Uncle Manny (Jere Burns, Otis) and his dead-sexy paramour, the Harley Quinn-styled Dollface (model Candice De Visser, making a memorable and assured screen debut), this very dirty half-dozen of Statesville Mental Hospital escapees is drawn to the bloody attraction because its various themed rooms depict the devious crimes that got them committed in the first place.
For example, Animal the Cannibal (E.E. Bell, Herbie Fully Loaded) is a chef who cooks with human ingredients; Dr. Suave (Sebastian Siegel, Risk for Honor) specializes in dentistry that flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath; the Taxidermist (Clint Howard, because duh) is “sew” good with skin, but we’re not talking animals; and Rocco the Clown (Mars Crain, Hancock) has a penchant for … well, as the old saying goes, if you can’t put a smile on their face, tear off the face.
Because the haunt is inspired by the loons’ infamous handiwork, they fit right in. A running joke of the film by Andy Palmer (Alien Strain) is that the crowds think them to be part of the plan. (Okay, so it’s not a good running joke.) It’s only after grisly slayings occur among their group that visitors take notice, that amusement is usurped by bemusement.
Funhouse’s flavoring? The 1980s — very, very ’80s. If you’re not going to be original, there are worse things from which to take inspiration. In his first feature as a screenwriter, The Hungover Games actor Ben Begley (who also fills the comic-relief role of the genre’s requisite bumbling deputy) clearly displays a soft spot for that era’s horror icons à la Freddy Krueger — not for nothing does Robert Englund cameo in the prologue — and in particular their more humor-driven misadventures, where the metaphorical stakes mattered little compared to the physical stakes … or any implement that was sharp, serrated and/or pointed. The balance between this Massacre’s light tone and heavy bloodletting works pretty well. Its effervescence just runs out of bubbles before Palmer and pals officially are done. —Rod Lott