Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Rebellious teen Amy defies her parents by going to a trashy carnival that has pulled into town. In tow are her boyfriend, Buzz, and their friends Liz and Richie. Thinking it would be fun to spend the night in the campy "Funhouse" horror ride, the teens witness a murder by a deformed worker wearing a mask. Locked in, Amy and her friends must evade the murderous carnival workers and escape before it leaves town the next day.
Tobe Hooper's carnival-set slasher has a genuinely atmospheric and distinctive setting that elevates it above typical early-80s genre fare, and the funhouse production design and moody cinematography show real craft. However, the plot is fairly thin and takes too long to get going, the characters are thinly written, and the acting ranges from serviceable to weak. The deformed villain is memorably grotesque but the ending fizzles rather than landing with impact. Its novelty lies mainly in the carnival milieu and Hooper's atmospheric direction rather than any structural innovation.