User Reviews

I'll admit, right from the beginning of this review, that I'm probably just not the right audience for this movie. I am fairly active in the horror community. I go to a lot of conventions. I participate in a lot of message boards. I know a lot of horror fans that would love this movie. I'm just not one of them. I'm trying to think of a way to put this review that won't come across so snobby, but I'll just say that it's a horror movie for people who don't want to think, at all. I usually prefer my horror with a little more intelligence behind it. That's not to say that I can't enjoy my share of mindless gore and scares, but this movie just seems so much to be aimed at an uncultured and uninformed younger audience.

I took a lot of writing classes in my life. There were always a few students in each class that just didn't seem to get it, at all. They had drive. They had interest in writing. They just didn't have a creative thought in their heads. Everything they wrote seemed to be crafted from others' ideas and that's the way this movie feels. It's horror created by Beavis and Butthead, as assemblage of ideas that have been done to death and done far better. The movie does seem to hint, now and then, that its' acknowledging its' use of generic tropes, but admitting that you're stealing someone's ideas doesn't forgive that you are doing so. Yes, there are movies like BEHIND THE MASK or SCREAM that have taken those ideas and twisted on them, while admitting they are doing so, but this movie doesn't come anywhere close to the level of writing in those classics.

We open with a scene at an asylum that feels far too much like the tour in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. It's a scene by scene introduction to our cast of killers with no creativity or thought given to it, just this killer has a cutesy nickname and here's what he did, then this one, then this one, all guided by Robert Englund who is featured on the poster, but actually has about a 30 second role.

Our rogues gallery reads like the most generic gathering of horror clichés you'll ever see. The leader of the gang is a cult leader who's a cross between The Joker and Jim Jones. That joker comparison is apt because we meet his daughter who is a straight up rip off of Harley Quinn. The movie even goes so far as to name her "Ms Quinn". This is perhaps the ultimate lazy writing. It's like the writer thought "Hey, I love Harley Q. I'm gonna put a horror version of her in my movie. I'll go ahead and call her Ms. Quinn and act like I'm doing it with a wink and a nod and maybe nobody will notice that I'm done nothing but steal someone else's idea". She's not even a very good imitation. The actress is terrible and moves with odd, stilted movements throughout the film. I've seen a hundred cosplayers who could have done this better.

Our killers continue with Clint Howard as a human taxidermist (because that's original), we get a fat chef who likes to cook people, a deranged dentist and maybe the laziest of all the characters, an evil clown. Really?? An evil clown?? There are hundreds of other generic low budget horror flicks riddling Netflix and the internet that all seem to think this is a good idea. We get it, people think clowns are scary. The idea got stale about 20 years ago, people.

Of course, we need victims, so we get a cast of co-workers, who fit snugly into horror typecasts, but are all far too old to be working at a dive diner and going to a haunted house together acting as if they are seeking scares and thrills. The slut is annoying. The jock is a cardboard cutout. The stoner kids try to be funny and fail continually. The "final girl" is neither attractive or interesting enough for anyone to care. The one character who works, at all, is the true main character, who wear a Dr. Who costume throughout the movie. The characters are given horrible jokes and bad dialog. They actually pull out "That's what she said" jokes, as if that hadn't got old around the time your granddad caught on 3 years ago and started using it.

The only thing particularly interesting about the movie is, perhaps, the gore, which is just content to be full of ample amounts of fake blood. The effects and gags are never really good. That is not a budget limitation, either, because I've seen plenty of low budget horror do more with no more budget than this had. The effects never go for realism, in any way, and instead just settle for "look how much blood we can spill". There's a certain deranged fun in them, but even for a gorehound like myself, I want something more convincing.

This review ended up more harsh that I intended, but I often feel that the best way to get a true sense of your feelings on a movie is to start writing a review about it and see what flows out. The movie is fun in certain parts, but is aimed at the lowest common denominator, shooting squarely for those who don't want to have to put too much thought into their horror movie. If that's you, I'm not judging. It's just not my thing.

Robert Englund is credited first on the cover and has about 10 minutes of playtime. This scene is in an asylum and some dangerous serial killers escape on Halloween. They head for a fun house where there murder tactics are displayed which was planned by one of 'm for reasons I didn't quite get.

The story was bad and almost felt like they wrote the script while they were filming the movie. The acting was very forgettable and the odd character development did not help with this. Especially the stumbling cop turning to cool guy in the third act was a good example of this.

The movie just feels really messy and although there's a story to follow it lacks in which direction it want's to go. Some effects and some scenes are decent but nothing like the quality you've seen in better movies. The scares and the action felt lame and the whole thing just isn't that exciting and as a comedy it just isn't funny enough.

If your into the indie horror movie this might be something for you. For everybody else out there,I don't recommend it.

I will give it a star more for effort.

I found this movie to be quite Entertaining. This Movie is decent there's bits I love and bits I really don't like but let's start with the positives. The movie starts at a good pace. The characters get enough development for us to root for them. The movie is actually funny and thrilling. The Funhouse where everyone goes apart from the cops, well it was pretty stunning and colourful to look at. The action is quite cool as well. Now time for the bad stuff. People don't really think it's people actually dying like whattt? They don't even look like Dummies they look like real humans or are they just meant to be dumb for the sake of entertainment it's a small nit pick but it really bugs me. One of the cereal killers die so easily great idea that 😂. The farther and daughter thing feels rushed as that didn't have enough development in my opinion and the movie is a little silly. That's it all I have to say.

Overall 6.5/10.

Hey now. I'm supposed to visit my first "Haunted Funhouse" (actually 10 of them) next weekend at Kings Island in Ohio…and after watching this, I don't think so.

Not that this movie was the scariest film I've seen, but the concept and some of the execution was enough for me to probably sit that visit out.

The very basic of the plot here is that "five or six" mental patients are set free on Halloween night and they take over a Halloween Funhouse where they proceed to slaughter countless participants while we have a group of young adult friends plus a hilariously understaffed police force we follow and care about living through this {insert title here.}

The movie is probably 50/50 lite comedy and extreme gory horror and likewise, 50% of the humor works and 50% of the horror works. Luckily the positive parts are worth the entire attraction. I did find myself laughing out loud at times and freaked completely out during other scenes.

Of course, that leaves the missing 50% on both sides. Some of the jokes fell flat and some of the kills were so outrageously unrealistic, it couldn't be taken remotely seriously. Too bad, because they had something here. A place people could get slaughtered in front of others and no one would be the wiser. In fact, they relished in it. At least, in this scenario.

I rarely say this about a movie I just watched and came out less than a year ago: REMAKE THIS MOVIE. If you've seen this, can you possibly imagine if this was played straight without any comedy or the many attempts at homages to the slasher subgenre? (Oh, and for the record, most of those also fell flat and the John Carpenter's Halloween-Theme music never fit. Sorry Mr. Composer…you were just a Con-poser.)

If this movie was a straight up massacre horror in which people were offed in a Halloween Funhouse where you're supposed to be scared, but still make it out in one piece, it would probably kill at the box office, pardon the pun. Sure, I did enjoy the humor at times and the light tones did make me a little less jumpy, but if they remade this movie in dead seriousness, I probably wouldn't sleep for days.

Eh. Here, nor there. It's a thoroughly gory ride that, thankfully never crosses the line since we're supposed to be having a fun time. Amateurish at times – definitely had a direct-to-Chiller-Network feel – it never excels to "real movie" status and yet, it's definitely a passable horror-comedy.

Just too bad said "comedy" was really bad at times. The movie Scream this was not, but a distant cousin you can freely visit once in a while.

***

Final thoughts: Day 5 Movie in the Can! I'm watching a NEW-2-ME horror movie every day of October 2016 and this one I've wanted to see for a while now. Originally, I thought this was a remake to the original 1981 movie: The Funhouse, which I finally saw a year or so ago. That 35-year- old movie did not live up to my expectations, so I was hoping this new version would.

NOTE: it is NOT a remake. Just both are horror films involving funhouses.

Oh and one more final thought: who the hell opens their Halloween funhouse ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT? NO ONE DOES. Ours, here in Arizona, open a month prior and run every week until Halloween. I've never been to one, as I previously stated (until next weekend…maybe) but from what I'm told, the lines are extremely long and each sells out night after night during October…so why the hell would anyone open one, like they did in this movie, on the last night of the fright-season? Inconceivable!

This 2015 horror film tells about 6 psychos escaping from an asylum and head to a carnival fun park on Halloween night bringing mayhem. A group of teen friends discover that the carnage occurring is real and try to survive. Robert Englund (A Nightmare On Elm Street), Clint Howard (Ice Cream Man) and Courtney Gains (Children of the Corn) make appearances. This is an average slasher with some dark humor and gory make-up effects that obviously pays homage to "The Funhouse." Horror/Slasher fans may want to check this out at least once.

Opening with a lady in cinema's most obvious wig describing the traffic she was in as 'murderous'; with zero subtlety, we know that this woman is an antagonist. We are then treated to a tour of the films other antagonists by Robert Englund, quite fitting because this scene nightmarishly bad.Foreshadowing the rest of the film, this scene has no suspense or dialogue of value. It is simply poorly executed exposition to introduce the rest of the films antagonists, set in a maximum security prison which is literally held together with duct tape (you can see it on the prison doors). As far as antagonists go, these are the weakest, most cliché slasher villains imaginable, given a backstory in the easiest way possible: spoken narration over a flashback. We have 'Animal the Cannibal' (yes, really) the less interesting cousin of Drayton Sawyer, 'Dr Suave' who's only definable attribute is that he's handsome, 'The Taxidermist' who's first line of dialogue made me physically cringe with embarrassment, 'Rocko the Clown', and pen-ultimately 'Mental Manny' the prophet. All of these backstories never come into play throughout the film, other than that characters trope in the funhouse. Although, they try to rope in 'Mental Manny's' backstory into the "plot", but this means nothing and he is shot in the head regardless. Wig woman then does the big reveal and we see she is, shockingly, another antagonist, as pulls another wig and full corseted clown costume out of thin air. After the title card is shown, we're introduced to the main protagonists of the film: two cops and a bunch of cannon fodder. All horror film clichés, of course. One thing that this film rams down your throat is its attempts at relatability, with all the cannon fodder making references to trends such as Vine, Hillary Clinton, and twitter. This is where the director tried to fit a message into the film about desensitization to violence. Examples of this are: the token black character filming the violence, everyone saying how 'real' the gore looks, and one extra seen walking around the funhouse, staring at his phone, unaware to everything around him. Just like the funhouse manager referencing 'Tweezer', the people making this film deliver this stale message in the least intelligent way possible, as it is so in your face. Poking fun at the younger generation all the way through the film is not a successful way of getting your message across. Cinematography in this film is monotonous, as the director overuses flat mid-shots and closeups. There are so many scenes in this film which we either don't get to see and want to see, or do see but don't want to. For example, we don't want to see the extensive sorting of the recycling scene leading to a false scare or the awkwardly shot toilet sex scene which seems to go forever (ironic because one of the films protagonists mock that it was 'quick'). We do want to see inside the funhouse, as it is the key setting of the film, when all we get is the protagonists running in and out of the funhouse, with camera shots having no respect for the audience, as I didn't know where the characters where half the time. Awkward cuts, boring shots, and quite frankly not enough of the funhouse being shown, cinematography was disorienting and stale. Weirdest of all, there seemed to be footage of non-actors at some Halloween event in real life put in throughout the film, filmed on a different camera, and with no diegetic sound in each of the shots, making for awkward jumps out of the film. Sound design in this film is what made me laugh the most (I guess it is listed as a comedy), because the choice of stock music and sound effects just completely removed me from any immersion I could have possibly held onto. Action music and rock played over every scene with a killer in, stock sound effects where overused (even a Wilhelm scream), and the script was clunky, with lines often making no sense or void of any relevance. As I mentioned before, there were even times in which no diegetic sound played at all, or music was cut off without any sound bridges between scenes. Lines would be awkwardly cut away from as soon as they were delivered; in one case the line was just cut off mid way! Unless racial stereotypes, sex jokes, 'that's what she said's' and puns are what you find funny, there was no comedy to this film. The funniest part of the film to me was the awkward rubbish sorting scene, because it was just so unnecessary. Gore was aplenty in this film, but none of it stood out or meant anything. I commend the film for using physical effects the majority of the time, but these effects were often poorly executed and came across as people wearing makeup in a funhouse. I wanted the gore to be a redeeming factor of the film, but it is in such high quantity that it does just come across as the whole thing has been set up by workers at a funhouse, giving it no impact on the audience. Maybe I truly have became desensitized... The ending of the film was a 'Silence of the Lambs'/'Friday the 13th' mishmash, with 'Rocko the Clown' rising from the grave after taking a shotgun shell point blank to the face, as well as the clown woman disguising as the cop lady, being taken away in an ambulance; I guess foreshadowed by her disguise in the exposition. I understand this ending is tongue in cheek, but I was happy with all of these characters being dead. Conclusively, this film is trash; and not B-Movie 'funny bad' trash either. Crowded with irrelevant plot, a slapdash script which hasn't been proof read, despicable characters who we all want dead, bottom of the barrel comedy and embarrassing sound design, this film takes the 'fun' out of 'funhouse'.