I hadn’t really said anything about the loss of Tobe Hopper
on the blog because I knew it was only a matter of timing before I could get to
him, considering October was just around the corner. He always had a way of
including a lot of ugly human behavior and madness in his films, and early in
his career, the poor female leads would leave his films more than a little
fucked up. Poor Marilyn Burns went through the ringer twice with Tobe in the
70s with
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
and
Eaten Alive.
Not long before
Amadeus, it was Berridge’s turn to be left in a pitiful state of
terror by the end of The Funhouse (1981). Hooper had a way of incorporating his
brand of black humor, often dipped in acid and tinged with the crazy, such as
the monster willing to give up $100 for a fuck with the fortune-teller when his
daddy (the unpleasant barker played completely by Conway to make your skin crawl)
could have gotten him a far cheaper (and probably more cooperative) lay with
one of the dancing tent girls. Berridge—clothes tattered and ripped asunder,
face wrought with devastation at what she had just been through losing her
friends, and now pitter-pattering about in a state of shock—is very much Burns
by the end of
The Funhouse. Hooper seems
to include hints at this brewing undercurrent of potential adult misbehavior
towards children, particularly Berridge’s brother, often just avoiding, it seems,
abuse. A creepy guy in a truck, bums lingering about the grounds of the
carnival, and carnies themselves are commonplace as Berridge’s brother dodges
and misses danger. One carnie appears just a bit too enamored with the boy even
after calling his parents to pick him up out of concern for his welfare. And
anytime I talk about
The Funhouse, it
is nice for me to remind folks that Hooper had his aesthetic gifts as evidenced
by the wide crane shot overlooking the property of the carnival, even if
towards the end of his career they appeared to diminish. Hooper wasn’t afraid
to feature in his films the depraved and dirty, with Conway a game actor
willing to provide us with quite an assortment of barkers fulfilling just that.
His father of the monster is especially a repulsive concoction Hooper loves to
give plenty of time to. His sweet talk to his son after scolding him harshly
just so he’d kill the witnesses for him is pure Hooper. Most of Hooper’s films
indeed produced the ugliest kinds of human gobbledy-gook, and the actors that
portrayed them were provided carte blanche to depict them in the worst ways
possible. Hooper, sufficed to say, was an acquired taste. And he left us with
quite a resume featuring films depicting the worst side of man and rarely
allowed his victims any piece of mind or sanity even if they survived. No
matter if they endured and got out of a Hooper film alive, these ladies
certainly will never be the same. Berridge clearly establishes that as she escapes
the funhouse—much like Burns riding away in the back of the pickup in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—her mental
break will never let her forget the ordeal she just made it through. She
encountered her human madness and saw its violent results. Hooper, meanwhile,
once again had his dalliance with the dark and gave us those results.
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| Tobe Hooper [1943-2017] |
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