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| Beal |
The Funhouse: (John Beal) In the horror boom of the
early 1980's, the concept of non-bloody genre entry, one that uses
ambience and calculated jolts of action to scare audiences, became
popular with a younger generation of viewers. Despite the introduction
of slasher films at about the same time, as led by the
Friday the
13th series, director Tobe Hooper took the long-awaited concept of
carnival horror to new heights for
The Funhouse one year before
he would stake his claim to fame with Steven Spielberg's
Poltergeist. As funny as it may seem when thinking back on that
period of time, crazy carnival movies with homicidal monsters lurking
within weren't necessarily the same recipe for stupidity that they
became a few decades later. In fact, Universal Studios commissioned
then-anonymous author Dean Koontz to write a novelization based on the
screenplay for release before the actual 1981 film hit the theatres.
With over a million copies of the book foreshadowing
The Funhouse
sold off the shelves before the cinematic release date, the appeal of
the film was well established. While the project did not achieve the
success hoped for at the time due to its non-October release, the
feature film became somewhat of a cult phenomenon after its endless
showings on cable television during the 2000's. It's a tale of four
typical teenagers seeking intentional spookiness by hiding overnight in
a traveling carnival funhouse, but before they know it, they're trapped
in that creepy environment with a deranged, deformed, and masked killer.
As expected, the story is certainly not forgiving to the youngsters,
though the filmmakers do allow most of the running time to progress
before killing off the first victim. Combining a tiny bit of slash with
a good dose of monster and visual confusion, history has largely
determined that
The Funhouse is less derivative than its purely
slashing siblings, and part of that strong, unique equation is the
presence of composer John Beal's memorable score.
Known mostly for his work on the television show "Happy
Days" at the time, Beal took the opportunity to reintroduce the complex
orchestrations of the classic horror genre for
The Funhouse and
help establish a versatility that led him to become one of the kings of
movie trailer scoring in the decades to come (before libraries of
generic muck replaced original trailer music in the industry). Beal's
involvement with this specific sound continued with his subsequent work
for the mini-series adaptation of
Stephen King's It. With the
insistence by the filmmakers that a melodic orchestral score be applied,
Beal's return to traditional attention to high class details in
The
Funhouse makes it more timeless than the film could ever be. For the
largely symphonic result, the depth and range of the performing group is
surprisingly crisp, even with its somewhat advanced age. Aggressive in
his approach from the start to finish, Beal makes no attempt to hide the
element of suspense. After a wickedly striking opening cue, during which
an innocent flute is struck down by orchestral hits and violin slashing
of yesteryear, Beal continues to tighten the score's grip as it
progresses. That "Main Title" introduces the composer's main ideas for
the lead character and the carnival atmosphere, the same atonal chord
shifts applied to many of the thematic enunciations to follow. A
slightly waltz-like rhythm, always appropriate for a carnival
atmosphere, represents the setting and slowly churns in early cues,
eventually exploding with all of its ominous force when fully realized
in the final two cues. The depth of the string section in the recording
for
The Funhouse is a defining element, with lofty, full
performances of meandering, strangely melodic ideas weaving constantly
throughout. This section, as well as woodwinds and piano, convey the
rather lonely and cold character theme that meanders throughout the
score. A heightened sense of unique orchestration is also present, with
non-traditional instrumental sounds employed to tingle your nerves. A
slight electronic presence in the bass region is typical to the era,
employed as a live, fifth section of the orchestra but not relied
upon.
Beal's approach to
The Funhouse is edgy in his
eventually relentless rhythmic progressions, never hesitating to take
the opportunity to reach a cymbal-crashing crescendo when a monster is
sighted on screen. To that end, Beal's monster motif is supplied
liberally and with gusto. A few cliched slashes of strings owing form to
Bernard Herrmann are forgivable in
The Funhouse, as are some
standard shrieks from the woodwinds, because they are typically only one
layer of horror upon many that Beal constantly throws at the listener.
The thematic structures overall are rather unpleasantly dissonant and
not particularly memorable, though they are effective at their task, and
the score resists resorting to blatant carousel-inspired, organ-led
rhythms outside of the bookending cues and a few source pieces. The
propulsive nature of the music, along with its surprising size and sound
quality, make
The Funhouse a much better than average effort in
its genre and era. An intelligent mix and reasonably balanced
presentation on album will impress enthusiasts of Christopher Young and
Jerry Goldsmith's equivalent efforts of force, and the label that
brought so much of those composers' music to collectors was also
responsible for
The Funhouse. Intrada Records first released the
score as a promotional offering in 1998, but the label returned to the
work as a limited pressing in 2023. The original product featured a nice
merging of cues into longer tracks, whereas the expansion provides the
original cue formations and about five minutes of additional music from
the score proper. Beal recorded a variety of source cues for the picture
as well, ranging from contemporary pop music to extended calliope-style
ambience for the carnival; these are included on the longer album, along
with alternate takes that together append another 34 minutes of music to
the presentation. The condensed arrangements from the 1998 album are
arguably preferable, as the supplemental music dominating the 2023
product seems to slow the experience. Sound quality on the later product
is still restricted to largely the same archival quality as its
predecessor. Regardless, the label should be thanked for its loyalty to
preserving and remastering this nearly forgotten but refreshingly
dynamic horror score.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert of the 1998 promotional album includes no extra information
about the score or film. That of the 2023 Intrada album contains extensive
notation about both.
