Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for The Funhouse
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
1981 · FILM

The Funhouse

Four rebellious teens are trapped in a sinister carnival funhouse and hunted by a deformed killer in this chilling slasher thriller.

“Pay to get in. Pray to get out!”

Directed by
Tobe Hooper
Written by
Lawrence J Block
Runtime
95 min
Horror

Synopsis

Rebellious teen Amy disobeys her parents by visiting a seedy carnival that has arrived in town. Accompanying her are her boyfriend, Buzz, and their friends Liz and Richie. Hoping to have fun, the group decides to spend the night in the eerie "Funhouse" attraction, only to witness a murder committed by a deformed carnival worker wearing a mask. Trapped inside, Amy and her friends must avoid the violent carnival staff and find a way to escape before the carnival departs the following day.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 20

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Jack HofstraShot by Andrew LaszloScored by John BealDesigned by Mort Rabinowitz

Box Office

1981 · Box office

✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.9× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$7.9M

Budget$2.0M
Worldwide gross$7.9M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $7.9M — 100% of worldwide · International: $142 (0%)

Opening weekend: $2.8M — 35% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $3.4M — 44% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 814 theaters

Also known as

  • Das Kabinett des Schreckensde
  • Funhouse - Kabinett des Schreckensde
  • Massacres dans le train fantômefr
  • Il tunnel dell'orroreit

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

Help complete this page

We’re missing mpaa rating. Sign in to add what you know.