While "The Funhouse" avoids the gross-out techniques generally favored by today's B horror filmmakers, it nicely evokes the chillers of a bygone era as it pays its respects to Hitchcock and James Whale.

[Tobe Hooper] shows both his range and his thematic consistency in this luscious, morbid 1981 fairytale.

...Hooper spends much of the movie’s endless runtime focused on the one-dimensional protagonists’ meandering, hopelessly tedious exploits.

The imaginatively designed funhouse, oddball characters along the periphery, and a masterfully staged climax allow this to stand out.