The Funhouse
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
The third punch on my Thursday Thread-Up card for the 2025 season was the 1981 slasher The Funhouse.
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| Show banner designed by Andrew Kern |
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| Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco |
The Mahoning haven't hosted a Tobe Hooper themed weekend since we started coming here, but I've still been able to check off quite a few of his films off of my 35mm screening wish list over the past five years. I've already gotten to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part Two (twice), Eaten Alive, Poltergeist, and Lifeforce on the big screen in Lehighton. This screening of The Funhouse is my sixth Tobe Hooper film.
Last night's screening also fell on Virgil's birthday, so there was cake in the concession stand for everyone.
Speaking of the snack bar, I managed to score a new personal best 108,860 on the Ms. Pac Man machine near the entrance to the projection booth, however it's less than halfway to the new high score of 222,600.
As always, the feature hit the screen when the sun went down. When this show was announced, I could immediately picture the cover of the VHS tape box in my mind, but I couldn't remember if I had seen The Funhouse before. I probably would have had a better idea if I'd seen it or not if I looked up the description online, but I didn't want to do that just in case I hadn't seen it before. There's no movie-related experience that I cherish more than going into a screening with absolutely no prior knowledge about the film that I'm about to see, especially when it's a classic horror flick.
I realized about two minutes into this screening that I hadn't seen it before. In fact, I don't think I'd ever even seen the trailer. It's a damn good slasher flick with a lot of incredible scenes that feature the attractions at a traveling carnival. This one gets my strong recommendation to any horror fan.
