THAS ANNEX

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Amy vs. The Monster

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:37:00 -0700

The Funhouse’s excellent climax gets a post!

“Stripped of its hide, the belly of the beast is a stark contrast to the peacock plumage upstairs, all rusted metal and steel. Only the impersonal brutality remains. For a horror film about imprisonment in a phony horror world, this is a more understated ‘Man behind the curtain.’ I’ve always thought of it as representing the hidden, ugly soul of the funhouse’s newly dead owner The Barker - still chugging along ‘alive’ without him.”

“From this blunder begins the chain of events leading The Monster to his death… Her act of aggression was a reactionary, temporary flinch. No arc of feminine empowerment through violent retribution or ingenuity. Fate’s good and bad fortunes play Amy’s drama to its conclusion.”

Lucky McKee’s “Masters of Horror” episode...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:46:00 -0700

Lucky McKee’s “Masters of Horror” episode Sick Girl

Lucky McKee’s “Masters of Horror” episode...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:04:00 -0700

Lucky McKee’s “Masters of Horror” episode Sick Girl

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Buzz vs. The Barker

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:04:00 -0700

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Buzz vs. The Barker:

Penultimate Funhouse Blog post! (Next month the “fun” ends!) With contributions by yours truly!

Tenebre (Dario Argento, 1982) DP: Luciano Tovoli

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 04:39:00 -0700

Tenebre (Dario Argento, 1982)

DP: Luciano Tovoli

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:25:00 -0800

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:

Really great and quite appropriately titled new entry at The Funhouse Blog!

“From Amy’s unanswered cries we cut to a similar situation: Liz at at the end of a dark corridor, the veins of the ‘alive’ funhouse, also up against a fan.”

“The monochromatic blue hues and black shadows sink are coolly bleak, especially compared to the color wheel of the funhouse showrooms. There’s a casual shift from one nightmarish moment to another one unfolding, going between the two girls.”

“The knife in hand makes her come-on as much an act of aggression as a psychological ruse. For the sake of opposite illustration, when Dean Koontz’s novel of The Funhouse reaches this moment, Liz is unarmed.”

“John Beal’s music crescendos here into the strains of his chaos motif, oddly aligning sympathies with The Monster on the receiving end of pain.”

“Even the climax of this gran guignol playlet eschews an easy resolution. Wallowing in Liz’s shoes as a physically repulsive abomination touches you with sexual interest is queasy to begin with. Still more unpleasant is being locked in an embrace with the freak you just attempted, unsuccessfully, to mortally wound as you hear the sounds of his albino heart breaking.”

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: TRICKED AND TRAPPED

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:57:00 -0800

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: TRICKED AND TRAPPED:

“The first few times watching The Funhouse I can’t say I picked up on the subtle manner the Carnival Manager regards Joey, but there’s certainly some kind of connection he feels that Mrs. Harper doesn’t notice and Mr. Harper politely ignores. My first interpretation was simply that he’s fond of kids - he works at a carnival, after all - and perhaps little Joey reminds him of his own son, or a son he never had, or even himself as a young boy. Unfortunately, as an older cynical adult, I’m not only aware that the scene strongly hints at pedophilia, but that all my previous guesses at the source of this carny’s affection for Joey are perfectly compatible with the dark side.” - The Funhouse Blog

“Effectively, the film The Funhouse springs to life at the same time that the funhouse itself comes ‘alive’ - which it really has, because just as in the case of Richie’s hanging, we don’t see The Barker manipulating the controls behind the scenes. If we did, it would probably seem silly because the timing is too perfect. Once again, offscreen, The Barker and Tobe Hooper are effectively the same master manipulator of the funhouse / The Funhouse.”

“Joey’s haunted stare at the funhouse is the last word on his adventure… His silence is one part surrender as the loser of this game of chicken - not ratting on your older sibling to dad - and one part withdrawal into the stunned silence of shattered innocence.”

NEW POST: THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Father and Son

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:03:45 -0800

NEW POST: THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Father and Son:

“The Barker’s scene here, and the scene with the teens that follows it, are a pair of monologues in which all the subtext of the film is laid bare on the table by the protagonists and antagonists, who actually feel equally trapped and responsible for their roles as victims and victimizers.” - M.H.

“In terms of modus operandi, he’s most analagous to Jim Siedow in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Parts 1 and 2 - a small businessman burdened by cleaning up the messes of his psychotic family member(s), and who forgives them not just as family but as partners in a way of life. Unlike Drayton Sawyer, of course, there’s no profit for The Barker in having murderous or monstrous family members - just a lot of hassle and worry.”

“At the beginning of the film, The Funhouse showed us a trickster little brother pulled from a closet by his angry older sister. Richie’s monologue tells us he was a little trickster jerk as a kid just like Joey, and the risk of being second-guessed at whether or not you’re scared is exactly the life-and-death situation Richie has dragged his friends into.”

NEW POST: THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Joey Gets Caught

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:23:00 -0800

“In the arms of the Carnival Manager […] Joey’s scream – a squeal, really, like a baby crying – is the aural summation of all the traumas accumulated throughout this harrowing night.”

“From one scared sibling to the other, Amy takes center stage again for the first time since before the group entered the funhouse.”

“Imagine being in a movie theater with the lights out, alone, and knowing that somewhere in those rows a killer was drawing closer. If the film projector suddenly sputtered to life and threw a horror film up onscreen, how long would you be transfixed before pulling your attention back to the danger at hand?”

NEW POST: THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: Frankenstein Unmasked

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:46:00 -0700

“The reappearance of Kevin Conway as The Barker is akin to the reappearance of Jim Siedow as The Old Man / The Cook in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the revelation of a remotely suspected evil on the sidelines of the action.” - M.H.

“With Joey’s fanboy panoramas of Universal Monsters and the clip from Bride of Frankenstein that concluded the film’s prologue, we know that the movie monsters of olde and their mythos are an integral part of understanding the dialogue with genre that The Funhouse is constantly engaged in. So let’s pause to consider the myriad of subtext that Frankenstein represents, and how this subtext relates back to ‘Frankenstein’ as we’ve come to know him. To begin with, he shares an awful lot in common with Boris Karloff’s Monster - he acts primarily as a brutish slave to a master.” - M.H.

“He’s got kind of a kindly uncle tone when he wants to use it, different than anything we’ve heard from him so far. This is exactly the tone we hear from Neville Brand in Eaten Alive / Death Trap and Jim Siedow in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films when they’re trying to coax their victims into a state of false forgiveness. The line about trespassing on private property is [Stephen] Thrower’s observation about ‘pseudo-civilized smarm’ personified.” - M.H.

“Compared to Halloween, Friday the 13th, Black Christmas, Prom Night, Terror Train or any other slasher film prior to The Funhouse, the killer’s motivations have almost always been steeped in inexplicable madness or some long-festering mania for personal revenge. The setup for why The Barker and The Monster must now kill the teens is ultimately to protect themselves, a motivation which would remain even if The Barker’s son didn’t have a scary monster face.” - M.H.

Guess I’m not done with Lucky McKee’s The Woman yet. END OF FILM SPOILERS BELOW THE...

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:44:00 -0700

Guess I’m not done with Lucky McKee’s The Woman yet. END OF FILM SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT.

The little sadist boy gets such an awesome death scene. Man.

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:18:59 -0700

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:18:42 -0700

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:17:48 -0700

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:17:22 -0700

Formations from the van scenes in the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: LOCKED INSIDE

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 22:22:00 -0700

THE FUNHOUSE BLOG: LOCKED INSIDE:

“What Hooper does most admirably in his staging of this slow fumbling around in the dark is reinforce the subtle idea of the funhouse as a world beyond our comprehension… [ ] … The placement of a single monstrous head like a beacon surrounded by blackness is a nice touch of foreshadowing.”

“… even at this point in the story when death has reared it’s ugly head (so to speak), Amy and co. could still conceivably get through the night just by laying low, as they intended to in the first place. The film’s pace of danger has been so entrancingly gradual, it almost feels like that’s a viable possibility.”

"Cinema, for me, is an art of prose. Definitively. The thing is to make films that look good without..."

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 03:17:00 -0700

“Cinema, for me, is an art of prose. Definitively. The thing is to make films that look good without having an air about them or having an air of nothing to them… Poetry irritates me… I like cinema because it’s prosaic, it’s an indirect, unemphasized art, it conceals as much as it reveals. The film-makers I like all have at least this one thing in common - a shared modesty: Buñuel, who refuses to do more than one take; Welles, who shortens his ‘beautiful’ shots until they’re virtually invisible; Bergman and Godard, who play down the importance of what they do by working at top speed; Rohmer, who works like a documentary director; Hitchcock, who’s so involved emotionally with his films that he pretends he’s only thinking about the money; Renoir, who affects to leave it all to chance - all of them instinctively reject the poetic approach.”

- François Truffaut, from ‘Evolution of the New Wave’: Truffaut in interview with Jean-Louis Cornolli and Jean Narboni

Not totally with him on his narrow, negative determination of the “poetic” qualifier (vs. that of the “prosaic” work), but I approve his general sentiment.

Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1964)

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:40:25 -0700

Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1964)

"While the radical Germans were picking up the transsexual banner and facetious attitude from Warhol,..."

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:27:00 -0700

“While the radical Germans were picking up the transsexual banner and facetious attitude from Warhol, it would seem that England’s big three — Losey, Boorman and Roeg — were fastening on Muriel, its princely craftsmanship and Leftist fervor. Talking about the way the French handled themselves in Algeria and World War II, Resnais’ movie about Boulogne, a city split by its bombed past and reconstructed postwar present, shows the marks left on its citizens by the sordid or disillusioning parts they played in two wars. The counter-narrative devices of Muriel turn up repeatedly in the baroque British film…”

- Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson

Quoted for that being an uncanny good Big Three.

Audio from a scene from Night Terrors. The musical scoring you...

Tue, 15 May 2012 01:19:00 -0700

Audio from a scene from Night Terrors.

The musical scoring you hear in the background is a borrowed piece entitled “L’Aurouse,” previously written by film composer Hubert Rostaing and licensed for use in the film (information according to end credits listing, where cue is listed under the heading “Dr. Matteson Warns Genie”).

I am always delighted by this scene, which utilizes the sampling to great, florid effect, effectively coloring the tone of the scene and evoking through the lush classical scoring the high philosophical stakes of the scenario occurring (a daughter and father throwing themselves down into an argument of ideology). Finally, it goes to show the surprising, unexpected artistic whims Hooper so often proves himself more than glad to encourage and apply formally into his films, with his films’ wide and accommodating thematic reaches.