Imagine this: you are a writer that has seen some success, yet still haven’t gotten to the point where money isn’t an issue when one day a book publisher asks you to write a novel based on a screenplay that a world famous horror director would be using for his next movie.  Sounds good, right?  Well, this is exactly the type of offer that was proposed to Dean Koontz back in the early

eighties, a time when his novels were doing pretty well, but hadn’t yet reached the monumental bestseller status he is familiar with today.  The screenplay was for the movie The Funhouse, which Tobe Hopper would be directing (you may have heard of him, earlier in his career he made a little movie titled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that did pretty well).  The idea was to have a novel written based on the screenplay, and then have each project -- novel and film -- be released on the same day, the hopes being that each one would act as an accelerate toward the other, driving up sales in both sectors (something that is done quite a bit now, but was a new idea back then).  So, screenplay in hand, Dean Koontz started working on the novel, one which ended up looking nothing like the movie, and, in my opinion, tells a much better, more character drive story.

The novel begins in a small trailer parked upon a desolate Pennsylvania landscape where a carnival has been set up.  In the trailer is a young lady named Ellen Straker who is getting ready to do something terrible, something involving a horribly deformed baby she gave birth to six weeks earlier, one which hisses and screeches while digging its wicked little claws into the wooden crib, its reptilian green eyes always searching for a way out.  Ellen wants to kill the baby, but has to do so quickly before her husband returns home to stop her, something which she succeeds in doing just seconds before her husband enters the scene.  Bloodied up from the baby’s teeth and claws, Ellen tries to explain to her husband why she did what she did, but he is devastated, and after giving her the beating of her life, throws her out, though not before promising to kill any future children she produces as payback for taking his wonderful son.  Years pass, and Ellen does have children, ones who grow into young adults who have no idea of their mother’s past, or the fact that she once had connections to the carnival that comes to town that year, a carnival which has a cool looking funhouse that they are determined to visit.  

Well written, fast paced, and deliciously terrifying, The Funhouse is a horror novel fans of the genera should not pass up, one which is sure to give plenty of sleepless nights as the reader works their way to the last page, their mind desperately wanting to find out what happens once the children of the former Mrs. Ellen Straker enter the funhouse owned by her ex-husband.  I also think it is funny that many people get upset with the film once they read the book because they think the film changed the characters too much, something that is a common complaint with most novels that are made into movies, but can’t really be legitimately voiced in this case since the screenplay came first.  I also find it hilarious that some poor sap keeps asking if ‘Owen West’, which was the pseudonym used when first publishing this book, ever wrote anything else and if so, where he can find them.  Hello, do some research.  There are plenty of novels by the author, just look up the name Dean Koontz.  I’m sure you’ll be more than satisfied.